Truth Of Time
by Shadow.X.Spirit
Summary: What happens when Kuma sends Zoro not only to a foreign place, but to a foreign time? Will he ever meet up with his nakama again or will he be killed before that? Here, Zoro will have to learn to trust new people and face the inevitable that is life.
1. Chapter 1

**silver that lines the soul- part 1**

_This sucks…_ He told himself. The last thing he wanted to do now was fight off a few weaklings who didn't know their place. Zoro could feel that his body was literally about to collapse from exhaustion; he was literally drained, of probably, what was all of his blood. However, despite all of this he couldn't allow his first impression with these guys to be that of a loser. So he mustered what strength he had and stood up from his small crater in the ground.

The minute he did so his body went numb and he couldn't tell if Kitetsu was still clasped in his hand, but he want by assumption. In the darkness of the night the marauders could not see that he was armed and they continued their jeers.

_This sucks…_ He told himself. Zoro closed his eyes, yet still sensed the presence of the five gangsters. _This sucks_… By now the other men were beginning to get annoyed by Zoro's quiet attitude so they decided to charge.

"You think you can just show up in our territory like that, huh?" One man who seemed to e their leader screamed. He held a broken glass bottle, and like all of the others his clothes were trash. "You think you can just do whatever you want?"

Zoro mentally sighed and gripped what he assumed to be Kitetsu even tighter. _They should know their place..._ Zoro looked up from the ground for the first time and his gaze met his attackers.

"You guys suck." He said nonchalantly. This made the men flinch and hesitate for just a split moment, but during that fraction of a second Zoro ducked underneath the broken, glass bottle and horizontally swung Kitetsu through the air.

Despite the swordsman's lack in energy a blue wave shot out like a "—Pound Cannon" attack. This blue wave of energy lashed out like a living thing and refused to stay in a straight line. It swerved around and made sure to cut every thief in the gut, spilling out their organs and blood onto the ground; eventually like lashed out of the alley and into the streets where it quickly dispersed.

As his attack did its job Zoro slowly moved out of his 'attack' position and slid Kitetsu into its scabbard. The screams of his defeated opponents had no affect on the green-haired man as he stood in the shadows, still in the center of his little crater. All five men quickly died after getting hit by his attack and they remained motionless on the ground. _Where they should be. _Zoro thought with an evil glare.

Rapidly the swordsman's mind was beginning to grow blank and hazy. He could feel his legs starting to buckle underneath, and even though he defeated his attackers with ease, he felt as if he just fought a war—which he kind of did. He glanced down at the dead bodies and decided that he should be satisfied. _I guess I could allow myself to slip—just this once…If I hang on any longer…I might… _Zoro gave into his body's request of wanted to 'sleep'. _In an alley like this, I should be fine if I— _As Zoro's body started to fall to the ground he caught a glimpse of _another _man in the entrance of the alley way. His vision was too blurry to get any details of the man, but he could tell that this stranger was starting to run towards him like a manic, but by now it was too late and Zoro blacked out. However, before he completely went unconscious he screamed at himself for giving in. _Ahhh—This sucks!_

**the next day**

A teenage girl turned on her NULTpad. She pushed a few buttons on the holographic screen which appeared over the physical machine (which was only about the size of her palm). The holographic screen changed to a different web page and a loading bar came up. However, in two seconds it was done loading and the screen changed to the words: "NULTchat". After pushing another button four faces of four other girls, all her age, appeared. All of a sudden the one teenager became all ecstatic.

-Oi, Oi, did you hear about what happen?

-What?

-Are you talking about the slashing that happened last night?

-Oh yeah I heard about that...

-What, what slashing?

-Yeah, the slashing, so you guys heard.

-I didn't! I didn't!

-Jeez, calm down okay...

-On the news this morning they talked about this slashing that occurred in Area 0-0.

-They found five dead bodies of these delinquents-they were 'slashed'.

-They also didn't find the person responsible.

-Ehhh! That's so scary...I shouldn't have asked; now I won't be able to sleep.

-That's you own fault...

-I saw a picture of the guy; an old security camera took a picture of someone who they suspect to be the culprit. I hacked into my daddy's computer to see it.

-He's a law-enforcer, right?

-What did he look like?

-Was he cute?

-You're such a slut.

-...He was a hottie!

-NO WAY!

-Here, I'll send you guys a picture, but you have to promise not to send it to anyone else...If this gets on the web my daddy will find out it was me and he'll be furious!

-We gotcha. We gotcha.

-Just send it already.

-...Slut...

-Here.

-Aiya! He's so cute~!-

_Silver, everything's so silver here, and clean. I can see my reflection if I look in a window...I feel so out of place. Here I am, sitting on the top of these...What did he call them..."Skyscrapers"-I'm sitting on the top of one of them yet people are flying by me in..."HoverCars?" Jeez, this place, along with being silver, is so confusing... _

Zoro ruffled his fingers through his hair in annoyance. He was sitting on the top of a skyscraper; legs dangling over the side despite the stomach churning height of 600 ft. He sighed deeply and looked down the side of the building, the sheer height not bothering him. The day was sunny, yet not warm. At the height he was (most of the skyscrapers around him were either the same height which was average or even higher) there was a lot of icy wind that made your skin numb.

Zoro enjoyed the wind, however, it made the slight pain that jabbed at his nerves subside and it reminded him of the breeze he would feel in the ocean on Sunny Go; the height reminded him of the crow's nest. So, even though he felt out of place in this silver, clean city, here, in this spot, he felt at home-somewhat at least. Behind him were a small patio and then a few more floors of the skyscraper before it ended at a point.

The swordsman looked over his shoulder at the few floors behind him. The glass windows which covered the side of the skyscraper (glass windows that acted like mirrors covered the sides of most of the skyscrapers in this city) reflected his image. He stared at himself and the frown which seemed to be etched on his face. His three katanas were perched on the patio next to him; he still didn't trust the people who took him in.

"Zoro-kun," A British voice called. _Speak of the devil..._ Zoro sighed. A door opened up and a man walked out onto the patio. "Ah—there you are Zoro-kun." He said relieved. The man looked to be the same age as Zoro and he had messy, raven-black hair. This man wore glasses and a white lab coat that covered his whole body, underneath the lab coat (which wasn't buttoned up) was a plain black t-shirt and jeans with normal shoes.

"Eh—what was your names again?" Zoro rubbed the back of his head, slightly embarrassed by his horrible memory.

"I-I'm Edward." The man said sheepishly.

"Yeah, Edward, right..." Both grew quiet and it turned awkward. Edward rubbed his hands together nervously.

"Uh, Zoro-kun I was just wondering if you were feeling alright. When I found you last night I thought you were going to die..."

"I'm fine now...Whatever machine you used to heal me worked." Zoro replied bluntly. He had turned around so his feet were no touching the patio, his hands were close by to his katanas and Edward noticed this.

"So, Mia wanted to talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to her."

"Then, perhaps me; would you like to explain how you got here; it's pretty obvious that you're not from this time period."

"Is it common for you to get time travelers?"

"Not really,"

"I'm not going to tell you anything."

"Oh, okay..." Zoro paused to make sure that this man was done before turning back to face the rest of the city. Edward sighed. He knew Mia would be angry with him for not getting any information out of this man, but he was just so terrifying. It wasn't his fault that he was scared by every little thing, and when you find a guy with ancient swords covered in blood, when you find a guy covered in his own blood to begin with it gives off a bad first impression. Edward, after pondering for a moment, he puffed up his chest and clenched his fists. _No, I'll stand up for myself._ The British man thought.

"Zoro-kun," He said deeply.

"Yes?" Just Zoro's voice alone, he didn't even have to turn and face him, his voice alone was enough to steal the courage right out of Edward.

"N-Nothing..." Feeling defeated, Edward walked back into the building, leaving Zoro to his thoughts.

Shuffling through the spotless corridor, Edward entered a very spacious, large room filled with wires and huge lab equipment. Lights were flashing everywhere and noises were beeping. Standing in the middle of the room was an 18 year old woman with long, black hair that went down to her shoulder blades. She wore a purple skirt that shown under her white lab coat. The women also had a black sweeter on and a clipboard in her hands. She turned around once hearing Edward sulk into the room; her heels clicking on the marble floor.

"You didn't get anything out of him, did you?" She sighed after reading his expression.

"I'm sorry Mia-chan; he's just so scary."

"You should be more of a man." Mia snapped, turning back to her machines were she picked up writing things down on her clipboard.

"It's not every day you find a samurai from the Great Age of the Pirates, who has _three_ swords, a_nd_ can kill five people when he's practically dying himself." Edward argued. Mia ignored him. She swished her hair with attitude.

"Did you know how surprised I was; I ask you to simply go out and stroll Area 0-0 for an energy source, and who come home with a time traveler from 1,000 years ago."

"Mmmm, but I did find you your energy source." Edward grinned.

"Yeah, and it happens to be a stubborn mummy."

"He'll open up eventually."

"That'll be the day NULT falls to the ground." Mia said, scribbling something else down.

Edward was no sitting in his room. He and Mia both owned the top half of this skyscraper. Edward was a historian while Mia was a physicist. They were both childhood friends but never lovers; Edward wished they were, however.

Sprawled out on his bed, sheets messy and half-falling off the bed, Edward allowed the sun from outside to flood into his windows and shine down upon him. (Edward's room was 20 X 14 feet and in the shape of a circle. His walls were made up of entirely windows. He had a desk by his door which was muddled with papers. Edward's bed was in the center of the room, looking out at the city. Clothes were scattered across the floor, which was white marble, just like the door was a bright white. When Mia and Edward say that they own the top half of this building, it really summarizes to the top three floors. Edward's room was on the bottom of these three floors, along with the kitchen and his bathroom. The second floor was the one with the patio were Zoro was sitting, currently. Inside there was a large living room with a couch, TV and table in the second floor. Lastly, on the third floor, which was the space above the patio, was Mia floor. There was her room, and her lab room where she ran her experiments. So basically, they only had these three floors, everything below them belong to others.) Edward, in this moment where the sun bathed him like a heater blanket, he thought back to the night before.

"_Did you say you needed something, Mia-chan?" Edward poked his head into Mia's lab room. _

"_Yes, actually I do need you." She turned to face him. "Here," Mia tossed him what looked like a small metal box. _

"_What's this?" Edward looked at it confused. _

"_I want you to do down to Area 0-0 and just walk around." _

"_Uh—walk around Area 0-0; unarmed…You know it's dangerous there! Besides, why do I need this thing?" _

"_It's to locate energy sources, or at least energy that stronger than your average sources." She explained. _

"_Is this with your machine again?" Edward moaned. _

"_Yes, I'll need to get a powerful energy source to run it…" Edward opened his mouth to protest when one of Mia's robots suddenly grabbed him by the scruff of his lab coat and shoved him into the elevator, bushing the down button before he even knew what was going on. _

_When Edward finally realized what was going on, the elevator door had opened and he found himself in Area 0-0, the bottom of the city. He cautiously stepped out and turned on the small, box like machine in his hand. The screen lit up and radar appeared. He started to walk around randomly, hoping to find something before he got killed. _

_Area 0-0 was the ground level in the city. Hardly anyone went down here because there were constant gang fights and thieves running down here. Everyone who couldn't keep up with the growing technology got stuck on the ground, while everyone moved upwards and started to live in the skyscrapers, getting around by HoverCars._

_Edward started to hear strange voices in an alley up ahead, and fear swept over him as the voices turned to screams of terror and pain. He would've sprinted away if it wasn't for the radar which started to go crazy. Edward looked up and saw a blue wave of energy shoot out of the alley and disperses into the air. At the sight of the blue energy, the radar beeped even louder and, not knowing what he was thinking, Edward ran over to the front of the alley and gasped at the sight. _

_He was frozen in fear. Before him were five gangsters, all dead, blood and guts pouring out of their stomachs. Edward could feel his stomach flip and twist into knots at the sight; the smell lingering up into his nose—the smell of rancid blood. He cringed away and held his nose, but the sound of something hitting the ground made him look up again. There he saw another man who was still alive, but barely. _

_If Edward's mind was any less bewildered than it already was, he would've had enough common sense to run away and tell the law-enforcers. However, something about the man who just collapsed made him come closer. Even in the dark light of the night Edward could see that the man's clothes were strange and that he had three, ancient katanas on his hip. _

_The strange man was lying in a small crater, which was filled like a pool with his own blood. Edward watched in horror as the man's shoulders painfully heaved with every breath, he watched the blood still coming out of fresh wounds. Normally, Edward wouldn't have done what he done, but for some reason he felt bad from the man. The idea that he was a time traveler popped into the historians head and he knew that time travelers always had trouble dealing with the new time. _

_He glanced down at his radar and saw that it was pointing to this man as the source of that blue energy before. So, with a sigh he slid the radar into his pocket and knelt down to the man. He tried to pick him up and somehow managed to hoist him over his shoulder. Edward struggled to keep himself from vomiting, the man's warm, moist blood ran down onto his white lab coat and the smell of the blood made him cringe. Dragging the time travelers feet on the ground, Edward slowly made his way back to their building. _

_Mia walked down from her floor to the second floor and into their huge living room. She was expecting to find Edward waiting for her there, but he wasn't. A small feeling of guilt and fear came over her for sending her friend down to Area 0-0, but she tried to hide it by crossing her arms with attitude. _

"_Oi, Mia!" She heard the historian call from inside the elevator. Mia looked up surprised and saw the elevator coming up and the door opened to the living room. It took her a moment to process what she saw but when she did she lashed out._

"_Edward, what the hell? I told you to go find an energy source, not some junky that got into a gang fight!"_

"_H-He's not a junky…" Edward heaved under the weight of the man; he was starting to drag him over to the small couch in the center of the living room. "I think he's a time traveler." _

"_So, we can't take him in." She ran up to Edward, but didn't help. The couch in the living room was lowered slightly—just a foot, however. Edward stepped down the small step, dragging the man with him, and with one last burst of energy he hoisted the man ont the couch. Gasping, Edward collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. _

"_L-Look at all of this blood?" Mia gasped at the pool of blood that was still in the open elevator and the small trail that lead to the man on the couch; also the considerable amount that was staining Edward's clothes. Still gasping, Edward looked up at his friend. _

"_He's…also…your 'energy source' by the way." _

"_What?" Mia gasped. "I-I never thought that it could be a human…" _

"_So, are you going to help me now?" Edward asked with a slight stern tone; he was beginning to get annoyed by her selfish personality. _

"_O-Of course!" She said as if it were obvious. She looked down at the green-haired man, his katanas and arms were sprawled out on the small couch. "I wonder what happened to him…" _

"_We can ask him that _after_ we save him."_

"_Fine, fine…just…fine…" Mia scowled. _

Edward, after replaying that night through his head decided to get out of bed. He walked over to his door and opened it. In front of him were now a kitchen, bathroom, stairs, and elevator. He heard laughing upstairs and became curious—Mia never laughed. He quickly ran over to the stairs and up them. The stairs were spiral and he almost tripped going up.

He came up to the top and was now on the second floor. His eyes unconsciously darted to the white floor where some of the blood stains were still visible. Then he heard the laughing again and looked towards the couch. There he saw Zoro and Mia sitting on the couch together, laughing their heads off. The first thought he had was not a good one and he could feel his face blush.

"W-What are you guys doing?" He raised his voice, making them aware of his presence.

"Oh, Edward, hurry, come here." Mia patted the empty spot next to her. Feeling himself blush again Edward obeyed.

"Oi, Willy, this VT thing is great!" Zoro laughed.

"My name's Edward and it's called a _TV_." The historian moaned sitting down next to Mia; Zoro was on the other side of her. The three looked up at the wide screen TV which was hovered near the ceiling.

"Look, look!" Zoro pointed excitingly at the screen like a child. Edward followed his finger and saw that the news was on; a female, news reported was talking with a microphone; she was at Area 0-0. In the background there were tons of people trying to peak around her, obviously they were interested in what was behind her.

_Area 0-0 must've never had this much people in one spot before_… Edward thought.

"Here I am, Susan Briggs in Area 0-0," As the camera zoomed in on her Zoro froze for a moment. The reporter had a close resemblance to Nami from his time. The reporter had her same, short orange hair and brown eyes. She wore a lavender button-down shirt and a lavender skirt and high heels. Zoro tried to ignore the resemblance and just watch the screen.

"Behind me in a common alley, law-enforcers have found, this morning, five dead bodies. The people who died are believed to have been a part of the Red Snake gang. They have been 'slashed' by what looks like a medieval katana."

""Medieval?" That women, she never changes…" Zoro grumbled, thinking about Nami's normal behavior. _I guess they have more in common than just looks._ He thought. Mia and Edward glanced at him, curious for a moment before looking back at the screen.

"The man who did this is still unknown; law-enforcers believe that they may have an idea about who it is, however, this suspect is not in any of the city's databases." That's when Mia and Zoro broke out into laughter again.

"They're completely clueless!" The two laughed.

"A funeral will be held in Area 0-0 at 2 o'clock today for anyone who may have known the people." Susan Briggs said.

"They don't deserve one; those assholes." Zoro moaned.

"What, you don't want to go?" Mia said sarcastically.

"Um—Zoro-kun," Edward broke their laughter. They two looked at him. "Why did you kill those people?"

"Because, they were in my way—they also attacked me first." He answered defensively.

"How did you get here in the first place?" Mia asked next.

"I'm not telling you." He looked away.

"All of those wounds that you got, those weren't from the Red Snakes, right? Something must've happened before you got sent here."

"I said I'm not telling you."

"Could you at least tell me about your time period?" Edward pleaded. "No one knows much about the Great Age of the Pirates…If I could find out it would be an amazing discovery."

"I'll think about it."Zoro grumbled. "_If_, you guys find a way for me to get back home."

"That's an easy one, but you'll have to meet _both_ our terms." Mia said with a smirk.

"What are _your_ terms?" Zoro asked Mia with narrow eyes. She grinned.

"You'll find out soon enough."

"I can't wait long; I have to get back to my nakama." Zoro said.

""Nakama" is that some kind of code word for your time period?" Edward asked, randomly getting a notepad and pen in his hand.

"Uh—I guess, it kinda means 'friends'." Zoro said half-heartedly. Edward wrote that down vigorously. "Baka…" He mumbled afterwards.

"Oh—what does that mean?" Edward practically jumped over Mia to get closer to the swordsman.

"You nerd." Mia stood up and brushed herself off.

"Baka…" Zoro said again.

"What's it mean?"

"Tch—idiot…"

"Zoro-kun…what does it mean?" Edward moaned like a child.

a few hours later

Mia was up in her lab, again she was writing things down on her clipboard. She walked over to a screen that was flashing on a large machine and copied down the data.

"What're you doing?" Zoro asked curiously. The swordsman was perched up on one of her machines; he was lying on his back with his head hanging upside-down over the edge.

"Would you get down from there?" She ordered.

"I'm bored; I have nothing to do." Zoro said. She ignored him like a fly on a wall. "Mmmm…" Zoro sighed. "Oi, can you really get me back to my nakama?"

"Your friends," She sighed and paused for a moment. Mia turned and looked up at him for the machine was 10 feet tall. "Sure, making a time machine isn't too hard…I made one once during my years in college."

""College"?"

"It's a place where you learn things." She explained. Zoro nodded—upside-down. "Anyway, I made one and it got first place, but I never ran it…It shouldn't be too hard though." She paused again. "Remember, though, you have to complete our terms before you can return."

"Sure," Zoro said. "Ben wants me to teach him about my 'time period' and you…you haven't told me your terms yet." Zoro rolled over so he was on his stomach. He rested his head on his elbows.

"It's Edward," She giggled. "And I said you'd find out."

"I'd like to find out sooner than later." Zoro said coolly. She stared at him when Edward interrupted them.

"Oi, Mia, I'm going to go out and buy groceries." He announced.

"Good, take Zoro with you." She ordered.

"What?" Both guys gasped in unison. "I don't want to go! /why should I take him?"

"Because I told you to, also, Edward, show him my 'terms'."

"You want me to…"

"I want you to show him NULT." Mia said sternly. Zoro sighed deeply and gathered up his katana from the top of the machine. He slid them onto his waist and gracefully jumped off. The swordsman then sluggishly followed Edward out of the lab.

"You did say you were bored." Mia called after them with a smirk. Once they were gone from her lab she paused and went into thought, biting her lip in the process. "Tch—" She threw down her clipboard onto a small desk and sprinted out of the room. "Oi, wait; Edward." Eventually, after leaping down the spiral stairs she met up with them in the living room.

"What's up?" Edward tilted his head in question. She bent down on her knees, gasping to catch her breath. "Mia…" The physicist suddenly jumped up and pulled Edward in by the scruff of his lab coat.

"Y-You said that he was my energy source, right?" She whispered. Zoro turned his head slightly so he could hear.

"Yeah…the machine you gave me led me right to him." Edward whispered back. Mia, without letting go of Edward, looked at the ground and pondered. "D-Do you still want me to get the groceries…Mia?" She was silent.

"Okay, I've decided." She straightened up and released Edward from her grip. "You two, before you go I have an experiment I want to run." She announced.

"Mmmm…If it doesn't have anything to do with you 'terms', or me getting back to my nakama, then I don't want to hear it." Zoro crossed his arms stubbornly. "Unless, you explain to me why I'm your 'energy source'?" He looked at her suspiciously.

"Don't worry," She grinned. "It deals with both." She noticed Zoro's expression lightened slight—possibly through the hope of getting closer to home.

"Both…" He wanted to make sure.

"If you follow me back to the lab then you find out…about both." She spun around on her heels and started back up the stairs to her lab. The two guys glanced at each other before following.

Now in her lab they looked around curiously, hoping to find the reason behind all of this. The two saw how egger Mia looked to get on with her 'experiment'. "Uh—Mia-chan….Will I be taking part in this experiment?" Edward asked nervously. Obviously he has some idea about what Mia does in her experiments. Without looking at them she replied, "No, Just Zoro." This brought Edward to sigh and Zoro gasp.

"Why am I the only one?"

"Because, you're the only one who plans on going through the time machine."

"Oh, this is about the time machine."

"No,"

"Then what is it?" He snapped. Mia glared at him over her shoulder.

"Step up on this platform and you'll find out." She hissed, motioning to the small, round dais next to her. Grumbling, Zoro reluctantly stormed up and stepped onto the elevated circle. He waited as Mia seemed to be doing some last minute checks. He sighed. Still waiting he found his eyes scanning the lab room.

It was mostly just a large, auditorium-like room filled with lab equipment, machines, a few robots, and over next to the wall Zoro gazed at what looked like a glass tube lying horizontally on the ground. He started to remember, from the night before, Edward and Mia putting him in said machine. It was all very vague; however, Edward filled him in after he regained consciousness.

Edward said in this time period machines would always heal people; so doctors became obsolete. They put him in that tube-like machine and gasses quickly knocked the swordsman unconscious, the gas filled air also kept Mia and Edward from seeing what was happening—but they assumed that it was doing its job because just after a few seconds it was done and the air inside cleared, revealing a completely wound-free Zoro.

"Zoro," Mia snapped him out of his thoughts.

"What?" He croaked, crossing his arms.

"Are you ready?" She asked with attitude.

"For what; I don't even know what you're doing." The physicist seemed annoyed with the man when she really should've been annoyed with herself. Cradling her clipboard she explained,

"Okay," With a deep sigh. "Let me explain. My terms…I'm not going to explain those; Edward will—when you two go out for food."

_Eh—so I still have to do that_... Zoro thought spiritlessly.

"However, you asked before about an energy source." She started to pace back and forth like a commander lecturing his troops.

"Actually, I asked why _I_ was an energy source…" Zoro mumbled.

"Now, I'll tell you." She spun on her heels and jammed a finger in her face. "Listen up Zoro, I'm about to tell you that _you_ are that so called energy source."

"I knew that already…" He sighed, feeling tired by Mia's suddenly ecstatic attitude. "I wanted to know why…It's not every day you find out you're some sort of power source for a machine…" He said, but Mia talked over him obliviously.

"Yes, you're an energy source. Last night I sent Edward out to find a power energy that could aid me, and he found you." She started to pace again like a soldier. Zoro moaned. "Of course I was surprised. That it was a human, but like a great scientist I will make due."

"Uh—Mia-chan, I hate to interrupt, but wouldn't you agree that you're straying away from your point?" Edward asked timidly. She paused and thought for a moment.

"Fine," She eventually snapped. "I'll just get right to the point then." She flicked her hair around like a whip. Meanwhile, Edward absconded behind a large machine where he thought he was safe from Mai's flaring annoyance—which was directed towards him.

"Oi, hurry up already…" Zoro moaned and for the first time Mia herd him. The physicist glared at him as she pressed a button on the machine next to her. Without taking her eyes off the swordsman to look at the flashing screen, machines all around the room started to hum. Zoro looked around curiously at the blinking screens which the physicist only seemed to condone.

"It better be over soon." He grumbled, as most of his time already been wasted. Mia grinned.

"Literally, it will only take a second." She assured with a sneer. Zoro looked up overhead as the humming and ringing filled his ears. Lights above started to glow like a pure, white radiance which filled his vision until there was nothing left.


	2. Chapter 2

**Mmmm, sorry if this chapter has a lot of grammar errors, I was getting tired and couldn't review it all…Enjoy! **

**silver that lines the soul- part 2**

**a few days later…**

Squinting his eyes, he harshly turned away from the silver light which reflected off the mirrors on the side of the skyscraper. Edward could feel his stomach flip and a knot grew in his throat keeping him from speaking or refusing to do what was about to happen. Closing his eyes he shuttered at the thought when an icy breeze blew by causing him to shiver within his lab coat.

"Z-Zoro-kun…Do I really have to do this?" He muttered after swallowing. Another breeze blew by and he started to hug himself. Was being up here necessary; if the swordsman wanted to kill himself then he could do it alone… That's at least what Edward thought.

"Of course," Zoro said—his excitement was radiating off of him as his eyes darted all around the city. He was almost jumping up and down like a small child awaiting a present.

"Zoro-kun, are you _really_ sure about this?" Edward was now clinging onto the back of Zoro's white jacket, pleading for the green-haired man to reconsider. Zoro took in a deep breath and held it. His eyes were flaring with frenzy; adrenaline pumping through his veins. His fists clenched and he reached back to grab the historian's hand. The black-haired man yelped when he felt the iron clasp of what seemed to be certain doom wrapping around his wrist.

Slowly Zoro took one step forward towards the edge of the skyscraper. To Edward it seemed like one step away from their safety in the center of the rooftop. Quivering in fear Edward tried to pull away but Zoro's hand was clamped around his arm like soldered metal. Another step towards the edge and by now Zoro's eyes were growing wider in anticipation; his heart thundered in his ears, blocking out all other noise.

"Zoro-kun!"

"I can do this…" He mumbled. "I can do this…"

"Please, reconsider…This is nothing like the practice you had in the apartment! Mia-chan did say we needed groceries, but we could always walk…or grab a HoverTaxi…" Edward was now being dragged on the soles of his heels. Reaching into his pocket, Zoro pulled out what looked like a small metal ball.

He stopped at the edge and stared straight down the side of the building, the mirrored windows reflecting all images of the HoverCars which flew by, both below and above the two. A small, uncanny smile crept upon the swordsman's face and the wind blew once again, ruffling his snow-colored jacket and his green hair (which has grown slightly longer).

He reached out and held the metal ball over the edge, pausing before he dropped it. And, before Edward could plead for a final time Zoro jumped off, pulling the historian with him.

**back in the time of the great pirate age…**

An old man snickered before shuffling away from his desk, where a muddle arrangement of his paperwork lay. He walked casually with his hands behind his back and laughed to himself; the ominous sound of the one man's laughter echoed within the dark corners of his lab. Over on the other side of the room, blinking lights and flashing screens awaited him.

With a sigh he walked up to them and started to read the words which appeared. The light emitted from the machines was vivid, but compared to the overpowering darkness—sparse. Once he was finished reading he removed his face of any lingering expression and started in compulsively cleaning his lab coat of seemingly invisible dust. Then he moved onto his cargo shorts and red-t. Before he could finish all of his attire the sound of blatant footsteps appeared outside of the towering, metal door.

"Mmmm," The man grumbled. He looked up from his leather sandals as the door opened; shedding a vast amount of light onto him and his lab. He cringed at first but quickly straight up at the sight of his creation. "My, my…Kuma—just how _are_ you doing?" He sneered. The looming warlord looked down at him with his emotionless expression just as always.

"You called me?" He asked, wanting to get right to the point. The old man grinned, revealing a few missing teeth; he ran his fingers through his coarse, greasy white hair before explaining the situation.

"I'm quite angry with you my Kuma…A little bird just told me that you interrupted the Marines in capturing the Straw Hats; is this true?"

"Yes," The warlord said bluntly. "However, I did it out of my own will."

"You have no will." The human said as if it were obvious, and quickly moving on, "But it is not the Marines I worry about—they know better than to make a move against me—but it's the fact that you're made my test subject disappear."

"Vegapunk…I—"

"Say nothing," Vegapunk raised a hand to silence him. "My new lab rat was in that crew and now they're somewhere around the world; who knows." He stopped himself and then turned to look up at Kuma; the small, hunched back old man was glaring at the 21 foot tall cyborg. "However, you do…Don't you…"

Kuma was silent, but that gave away the fact that indeed, he did know the whereabouts of everyone he sent 'flying'.

"Good, I want you to fetch me them." The Doctor ordered. "My experiment shall not be hindered by your mistakes." Kuma nodded and turned to walk out of the room. "Wait a minute, my Kuma…" The cyborg froze and despite being emotionless, he could've sworn that he felt the emotion of 'fear' welling inside of him. "When I said all of them…" Vegapunk paused and his eyes flashed malignly in the dim light (which Kuma's large figure was mostly obstructing). "I mean _all _of them."

**back in the future… **

A teenage school girl signed onto NULTchat; her other four friends were already there.

-There you are, there you are.

-Hey guys, what's up?

-Your dad, the law-enforcer, did they catch that man; I haven't seen anything on the news about it…

-About what?

-The 'Slasher' of course.

-Oh…No, I've asked him about it but they've had no real leads.

-But I thought they had a picture of him?

-That cutie?

-Well, yeah they do, but like I said before—he's not in any of the city's database so he's practically impossible to track or find.

-That's a shame…One of my brother's friends were killed that night. It was his first time in the Red Snakes too.

-You act like that's a good thing…

-Well of course not, but still it's sad.

-He was in a gang.

-Stop fighting you guys.

-I hope the Slasher never gets caught!

-He's a psycho!

-No, he's a hero, fighting off the corruption of gangs and violence in Area 0-0!

-Haven't you heard the ancient saying: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"…

-Well, if you're blind then you just can't see the progression forward…

**somewhere else in the city…**

"P-P-Please slow down, Zoro-kun!" Edward screamed, clinging to Zoro's back like a small ape. Zoro gritted his teeth against the whipping wind.

"I'm trying…"

"Zoro-kun I don't want to die!" Edward then broke down into tears, crying into the back of Zoro's jacket.

"Shut up you baby; look there's the store." Zoro quickly collected himself as best as he could and tried to slow down enough to stick the landed on the platform that jutted out from the supermarket skyscraper. "Yosh!" He pulled back and the two came to a grinding halt, almost enough to make them fall backwards, but Zoro managed to jumped off and land safely on the dais with Edward on his back. "There we go." The swordsman ripped Edward off himself like a piece of clothing and placed him down onto the sturdiness of the stone.

The swordsman then reached into the air and took hold of the HoverBoard. He tucked it safely under his arms and sighed deeply feeling a sense of accomplishment. Edward, however, was attempting to calm himself but his body reluctantly continued to shiver and his eyes looked as if they were stapled open.

"T-That was, by far, the scariest moment of my life…" He mumbled through chattering teeth. Zoro just grinned at him and patted the man's back.

The HoverBoard he held was about the length of a snowboard, slightly less. It had no wheels or attachments, and was only an inch thick. The light metal wrapped around it was a mixture of black and dark green, contrasting each other in heartfelt designs. On the bottom of the machine were two identical, black holes that jutted out only a little.

"I have no idea why Mai-chan agreed to give you that stupid thing." Edward sighed, finally composing himself.

"Come on, it's fun." Zoro pushed a small button on the board and in a second it folded up into the small metal ball it was before. The swordsman slid it back into his pant pocket and acted as if he wasn't even there. "She said that I was special so I could ride it." He said innocently.

"No, she said that your so called 'energy' could act as a reliable fuel source for this machine therefore you could ride it without another energy source attached on." Edward grumbled; he began to straighten his lab coat and black hair back to their normal position.

"So basically, 'I'm special'" He teased, walking towards the door to the supermarket.

"Whatever makes you happy…" Edward sighed in defeat. The historian walked into the market as the doors on the platform automatically slid open for him. Zoro, however, took one last glance at the city and the HoverCars zooming around; bending around curves; stopping at the lights which floated in the air, or at the signs which stuck out of buildings. Now that he too could fly around in the air he was beginning to feel some sort of connection to this place which, to the swordsman, seemed like its own living thing.

Yet, at the same time that connection of flying through the air like a bird or mythical creature was only a thin line. Everyone else was inside cars—thick, bulky machinery surrounded in impenetrable metal. The people were secured in their seats by belts; they looked out at the world through a glass window. However, Zoro was there, in person. Unlike them he didn't have a large engine emitting fuel for the HoverCar to run properly—he was the fuel; without him this little board in his pocket would be nothing.

That blue energy which flowed through him; the energy that he always thought was just a sword attack was actually; as Mia said, almost an element of its own. And if he mastered it enough he could do a profuse amount of incredible things; like making the HoverBoard fly. So, along with the city itself, he had another obstacle in his way: himself. And it was that very thing: himself, which made that thin line of connection so thin. He was not like the others here. He was different; even Edward was different than him. He could do things they couldn't, and though that made connection and befriending others here practically impossible, it gave him that feeling that he would wish to have even more than friendship. Zoro laughed to himself at the thought. This energy, 'element', that flowed within him made him feel better than ever one else; it made his strengths and possibilities seem infinite.

"Oi, Zoro-kun," Edward stuck his head back outside once he noticed the swordsman's absence by his side. "Are you coming?"

Zoro laughed to himself again. Yes, it truly made him feel different—yet better, in some ways.

**back at mia and edward's apartment… **

Walking through the living room, Mia noticed how empty it was without Edward around or Zoro for that matter. She had gotten used to having two men here—as terrifying a thought as it was. Normally, Edward would be trying to dig information about Zoro. 'What was it like in that age?' 'What kind of government did you have?'

Zoro, however, would be submersed in simple things such as watching TV; excited about everything like a small child who had just opened his eyes to the new world. He'd be sitting on the couch, (Edward next to him with a notepad and pen), the swordsman's legs would be crossed and his eyes would be wide, locked onto the screen. Then, after two seconds he'd press a button on the remote and the channel would change, and every time he'd be surprised that from such a distance he could change the TV. Though he never spent more than two seconds on each channel, Mia did notice that he spent slightly more time on the news channels. However, not all, only the one with Susan Briggs; the reporter who had short, orange hair with brown eyes, and as much as she should question him about his strange response to Susan he simply ignored her.

Blinking and coming back to her senses Mia glanced around the empty living room. The white couch with no green-haired, obnoxious, stubborn, man sitting in it; no TV flicking every second, no Edward begging for answers, not even the blood from Zoro's first night here remained.

The physicists clutched her clipboard closer to her chest and sighed, trying to expunge any thoughts. Mia then looked out through the glass doors and out onto the balcony where she watched HoverCars fly by. Through the mirrors on the buildings she noticed that the sky was darkening, but not just end of the day dark, grey clouds were rolling in the winds were picking up. Strangely, she found herself wishing for Edward and Zoro to return as soon as possible.

Feeling a sudden wave of fatigue wash over, Mia made her way to the couch in the middle of the room. Placing her clipboard down onto the glass-coffee table she sat down onto the white piece of furniture. Mia reached for the TV remote than decided not to. With a sigh she leaned back, head on a pillow—and forcing herself to stay awake, Mia thought back to only a few days ago when she did those experiments on the swordsman.

_At first results were shocking—the experiment that Mia had just done with the lights was only to scan Zoro and see what kind of energy it was that her radar picked up from him; a very boring experiment, much to Zoro's reluctance. What she found out was that there was a mass amount of unknown energy actually stored and created within him. _

_ "What is it?" Zoro asked, nonchalantly sitting on the side of the scanning machine. _

_ "W-Why didn't you tell me that you had energy like this inside of you?" She gasped. Zoro shrugged. _

_ "Didn't really know I had it myself…" _

_ "Edward," She turned to the historian who had come out from hiding. "What did you see when you found him?" _

_ "You mean the blood, or perhaps the bodies of the Red Snakes, did I mention the blood—awful stench?" He was being more sarcastic than normal, and it just so happened to tick Mia off. _

_ "No," She glared. "When the radar picked him up…" She tried to keep cool. _

_ "Oh—" The historian returned to normal. "Well, I saw this huge wave of blue energy shot out of the alley and disperse into the air." He mimicked it with his hands in the air above his head. _

_ "That, that's just my sword attack," Zoro said as if it were obvious. "I use that attack all the time." _

_ "If my guess is correct than that's no sword attack." Mia said. "Likely it's you compressing this energy you have inside of you and condensing it so it's visible to the eye and can do physical damage." She explained. _

_ "Oh, is that all…." Zoro yawned and stretched out lazily. "Can I go now, if that's all you're going to do than I want to go take a nap." _

_ "Fine, besides I have to get working on something anyway." Mia waved the two of them off and placed a finger on her chin, pondering in deep thought. _

_ Then, all that night Mia kept the two boys from leaving the building, telling them that they no longer needed to go out shopping. Zoro seemed happy enough with it and just fell asleep on the couch all night, Edward went down to his room and who know what he did. However, that was when Mia started out on the HoverBoard. The idea came to her and she just knew that it would work. She calculated everything she would need to go into making it and set her robots to work. _

_ While her minions started to make it she sat at her desk in her lab, reviewing her calculations. But she found her mind wondering off. Mia rested her head on her elbow and sighed in exhaustion. What a satisfying, yet lengthy day it was. She started to tap her fingers on her desk in rhythm to her heartbeat. HoverBoards were once extremely popular a few years ago, however, they were soon rendered insignificant by the public. Because they were so thin one could not put an energy source in without bulking the ride up, and what was the point of having a HoverBoard with a large engine attacked to the back. _

_ So, despite looking cool and having fame for a fleeting moment, HoverBoards quickly became a thing of the past. Mia knew, however, that with Zoro this HoverBoard design could work because the engine didn't need to be put on the board itself; it was portable and extremely annoying—basically with Zoro he could probably surpass all other HoverCars when he rode this machine. But she would never tell him that, no need to boost his self-esteem anymore. _

_ The next morning, when the two guys woke up they came to go check on Mia and found the HoverBoard to be completed. And, like the TV Zoro stared at it with fascination like a present on Christmas. He took it gratefully, (though not expressing it), and immediately wished to try it out. Though it took some explained from both of them to let him know them trying it outside on the first try was not a smart thing to do. So Zoro agreed that he'd practice in the living room for a while. And he did just that. _

_ He proved that the HoverBoard, without a machine engine was much harder to control. Zoro had to calm himself completely or he'd let out too much energy and be sent flying. If it wasn't enough he wouldn't get off of the ground. After destroying many things he was able to stay hovering for a moment and Mia and Edward cheered for him. He grinned but then that threw him off balance and he fell backwards onto the couch. The HoverBoard, like a dog to its master dropped slowly down next to him. _

_ The small holes on the bottom of the board was where the blue energy came out of, propelling him upwards. Mia was happy with her design, it was showing to be able to channel Zoro's energy through the board well enough. However, it was Zoro who was having the problems. Never, even in swordsmanship, had Zoro been this bad at something. It was easy enough for him to focus his energy to his feet where it entered the board; it was just the output that seemed impossible. _

_ For two whole days Zoro practiced in the living room. Edward and Mia no longer watched him, hoping that by now he had realized that it was difficult and wouldn't try it outside. Much to Zoro's detest he ended up cracking the screen on the TV and once when he flew over the couch, the energy coming out of the board at hit the remote and sent it flying into the wall where it cracked. _

_ Zoro jumped off and landed steadily on the ground, the HoverBoard lowered into his arms and he stared down heartbrokenly at the shattered pieces of his magic TV wand. But, when Mia and Edward learned about his little accident, they promised that they would fix the TV and order a new remote. Zoro seemed please and went back to practicing, only to end up breaking more of their stuff. _

Mia couldn't help but grin as she came back to the present. She glanced down at the new TV remote and remembered that Zoro hasn't seen this one yet, he'd be pleased to learn that his 'TV wand' has been replaced. Smiling to herself, the physicist felt at peace, but then a beeping came and it all shattered like the broken remote.

Grumbling she walked over to the wall where a hologram appeared. The words "You have guests." appeared on the screen. Annoyed she pressed a few buttons and the image of two men waiting at her door appeared; she could see them clearly, yet they could not see her.

Both men were tall, wearing prim, black suits with matching black hair, combed back like a gangster's. However, Mia had seen these two before and knew that they were nothing close to gangsters, but simply harsh looking business men—though that didn't make her enjoy their presence any more.

"Tell them I'm not here." She explained to the small computer, which blinked in response and the hologram vanished.

Outside thunder rumbled off in the distance and Mia's heart skipped a beat. Her chest ached with an awful feeling and all she wished was for those two to be home—right this instant. 

**back at the grocery store…**

Edward slipped one of the final items on the list into his bag. Meanwhile, Zoro was musing, looking out the window; his eyes locked onto the sky where storm clouds were beginning to take shape. He sighed mentally while a few people walked past him in the store. They were either couples, mothers with children, or one in between. Many glanced at Zoro curiously as they walked by, simply a second-take over the shoulder, but Zoro never noticed any of their stares—he condoned them and continued to gaze.

The swordsman's green hair caught many of their interests for people in this time period hardly had any exotic hair colors like they did in Zoro's time. Even his clothes were different. Though the white jacket was new and style, he still wore his green pants and boots which could be assumed to be 'strange'.

Edward watched the people from the corner of his eyes to make sure that nothing other than staring would take place. The last thing needed now was a fight to take place and have the law-enforcers come. Besides, Zoro was already a wanted criminal for killing those gangsters. With a deep, elongated sigh Edward grabbed the last of the needed groceries and he walked over to the swordsman.

"Oi, Zoro," He whispered, placing a hand on his should to snap the man out of his thoughts. "You ready?" He asked once Zoro turned around to face him.

"Oh—yeah, sure."

"I'm just going to go pay for these…See yea on the platform?"

"Sure," Zoro watched as Edward weaved through the allies of food and approach the cashier. Placing his hands into his pockets the green-haired man made his way over to the platform; the sliding doors opening up when he stepped in front of him, and immediately he was met with a chilling breeze.

Flinching from the sudden temperature change he paused before going to the center of the platform. He noticed that the winds were increasing in strength as the storm moved closer, however, that did not stop him from taking the metal sphere of what was he HoverBoard.

Pressing a small button on the sphere it jumped up into the air and unfolded into the HoverBoard. After its full transformation it clattered to the lifelessly. Zoro smiled to himself and took a step towards it; once one foot stepped onto the designated spot on the board it started to hum and glow a light blue.

Edward thanked the cashier and practically ran out of the market. There were wanted posters of what the Slasher supposedly looked like—and of course it was Zoro covered in blood, glaring at the camera. Clutching his bag of groceries, Edward came outside; bracing him against the wind. There on the platform he saw Zoro trying to get his balance on the board.

"Oi, there you are." The swordsman smiled. "Here, just let me get going and hope on." He said turning back to the board.

"Yeah; sure; sure; just hurry." Edward found himself jumping in place frantically. They had to get out of there and back home; what if someone saw them and called the law-enforcers. The HoverBoard started to hum louder but stayed grounded. "Can't you go faster?" The historian snapped.

"Jeez, sorry; for once I'm trying to do it right—not too little or too much energy out-put." Zoro barked back. He grumbled under his breath. "Just watch how perfect this take-off will be." He grinned and prepared his stance for the sky.

Edward tapped his fingers impatiently on the bag and felt himself starting to hyperventilate.

"Yosh," Zoro announced. Suddenly, in one vast outburst of energy Zoro was shot upwards, did a flip through the air; landing face first on the sliding doors above Edward's head. The black-haired man looked up in bewilderment—unable to react in time.

With his face implanted in the glass door, Zoro groaned to himself. Eventually he peeled off like paper and collapsed to the hard stone flooring. "Ugh—that was just practice…" He sat up and rubbed his throbbing head.

"S-Sorry, about this Zoro-kun, but we have no time." Edward then, out of his character, picked the swordsman up from under the man's arm and also the HoverBoard next to him. He hastily pulled the two over to the edge.

"What the hell are you doing, Ronald?" Zoro stammered as the man prepared to commit suicide and jump.

"I-It's Edward!" He then leapt off, pulling both of them off the platform and they started their plummet to death.

Within a second of falling Edward lost all feeling in his body and wound up clinging to Zoro, screaming in terror; the two were falling so fast that Edward's tears floated upwards. "D-Do something, Zoro-kun!" He bawled.

"Tch—you're the one that got us into this mess." Zoro mumbled in annoyance, and then, being as nonchalant as he was, grabbed the HoverBoard which was accompanying them in their fall and moved it so it was underneath his feet.

"I don't want to die!" Edward squealed as if it weren't already obvious.

"Tch—I told you to shut up already!" Seeing the ground level Area 0-0 quickly approaching Zoro's heart started to flutter in panic; once he placed his feet in the right positions on the board he was able to start emitting his energy.

"Susan Briggs here at Area 0-0 where we have just talked to nearby law-enforcers who say that the mysterious Slasher is sadly, far from being caught." The orange-haired reporter, Susan Brigs, talked into the camera, held by her partner; she blinked her brown eyes a few times and held the microphone tightly to her chest. However, screaming soon filled her and the cameraman's ears. The two looked up and naturally so did the camera's view. It got on the picture, two men falling from the skies to what seemed their inevitable doom.

Susan, a women who greatly resembled the Straw Hat pirates Nami, shrieked and jumped out of the way—without taking her eyes off of the scene. The two men looked as if they were riding a once famous HoverBoard and something like blue light was being shot out of the bottom of the board. When the two were only ten feet away from the concrete sidewalk, the energy intensified and they ended up halting in midair, or hovering for that matter.

As they slowed down everything in Zoro's vision looked like slow motion. With a blank expression on his face, his eyes locked gazes with Susan's and it took all willpower he had to not jump off and say: 'Oh, Nami I didn't know you were here too. So, how's it going?' Though, common sense reminded the pirate of everything that's happened and he grew depressed.

Susan looked at the strange man on the HoverBoard, he had green hair and piercing, black eyes that stared right at her. She could feel her heart going wild in her chest and possibly her cheeks blushing. But before she could even blink the man seemed to grow increasingly somber and in another huge burst of energy he and his companion were gone, shooting up into the higher parts of the city.

"S-Susan…" The cameraman broke her from her thoughts. The reporter jumped and turned to face the camera once again.

"W-Well it looks like that it was a close call for those two…" She trailed off when her earpiece began to vibrate. Placing a finger on said machine she listened to what her announcers were saying. "Are-are you sure?" She asked them. Then with a nod she returned to her viewers. "So it seems that the man from only a moment before was actually the Slasher himself." Susan tried to keep her voice steady, though the news was shocking to her as well. "We will update you more once the law-enforces conclude their pursuit. This is Susan Briggs, signing off."

Though Zoro's mind was a blur and everything around him blocked out, he could faintly hear Edward's screaming and the sound of sirens from behind. He closed his eyes and tried to fly faster, hoping to put as much distance as he could between him and _them. _Susan to be exact; she was too much like Nami and it pained him to even think about his nakama, knowing that seeing them was still so far away. So, listening to his instincts he let off another wave of energy and shot up into the silver soul of the city; silver which lined every building and all mirrors; silver which was emitted from every corner. He flew upwards, no longer knowing where he was going—and instead headed towards the black storm clouds over head. He flew towards the heart of the city which nestled itself in the silver soul. And that was where the blackness caressed the heart with dictating hands.

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please, if anything's confusing to you just ask and I'll be more than happy to explain. I can understand if I was confusing in anyway. REVIEW!~ **


	3. Chapter 3

**the blackness that caresses the heart- part 1**

Pacing back and forth in the living room of their three-story condo, Mia listened to the harsh pattering of rain drops on the windows outside. She looked up from her speck on the floor and saw the rain, once hitting the glass, run down in sheets. The skies outside were pitch black despite it only being 5:32. Thunder and lightning would randomly light the city up in an array of yellow streaks and flashes.

With a sigh she returned her gaze the floor; her heart was aching with emptiness which haunted her in this room; she wished, longed for the two to return home safely, especially after she saw them on the news.

"The Slasher being caught on tap after four days of hiding; he didn't seem to have any noticeable wounds on him despite going up against five Red Snake gang members; riding on the once popular 'HoverBoards' he is seen here with another man, whose identity is unknown at the time."

Mia was grateful that Edward was crying and screaming into the back of Zoro's jacket, therefore they couldn't see his face. However, at the thought of the whole city seeing the craven wimp on TV she slapped her forehead. How could she have ever loved that man at one time?

But then, as if on que with her thoughts, she heard a loud 'thump' and moaning outside on the patio. Mia's head jerked up and her heart jumped with joy as she saw Zoro and Edward yelling at each other, slowly moving towards the doors. Edward opened the sliding door and walked in first, Zoro shutting it behind them.

Puddles of water immediately formed below them as they simply stood in one place, pouting. Mia was planning on breaking the silence and speaking up first but she was unsure of what to say so she resorted to using the 'staring treatment'.

"I-It wasn't my fault…If Zoro didn't have such bad directions then we would've been home earlier." He pleaded, breaking under the first second of Mia's 'glare'. She couldn't help but grin (on the inside), _he's the biggest wimp in the universe… _

"Jeez, you're such a wimp Edward; you'd fit in perfectly with Chopper and Usopp." Zoro crossed his arms and looked down with disappointment at the drenched historian.

"You finally got my name right…when you're scolding me…" Edward sighed at the missing logic in the swordsman—but then again on their way home Zoro mistaken right for left; up for down; forwards for backwards, either he was deaf, in the mood for pissing Edward off, or just retarded when it came to directions—it could've been anyone of them.

"Did you guys see the news?" Mia finally found her voice. "Way to be subtle…"

"What do you mean?" Zoro looked up from historian. "I thought we were as quiet as a mouse?" He seemed completely sincere. Mia's eyebrow twitched in annoyance.

"Yeah, sure, very subtle—as if the whole city saw you on TV; couldn't you have picked a better person to fall on and not the news reporter?"

"Blame him." Zoro jutted a thumb at Edward. "He's the one who made us go off the building in the first place."

"I had to—if we didn't get out of their quick enough the law-enforcers might have come and taken you _and _me away!" Edward hollered in his defense.

"I could've taken them on."

"With what,"

"My katanas of course…" He said the line unconsciously, but when he did he froze—did he really have his katanas with him now; this entire time were they with him? Warily he looked down at his waist and saw it was bare. Then, as if turning a switch on in head he suddenly began to freak out. "Oi, what the hell did you do to them?" He pulled Edward up by the scruff of his lab coat, lifting the poor man right off of the drenched floor.

"What are you talking about?"

"My swords you idiot; when you found me of course I had swords—right?" Zoro screamed at the top of his lungs.

"You idiots shut up!" Mia snapped. "With the police out looking for you why the hell would you scream; it makes no sense to me." Zoro opened his mouth to protest when she cut him off. "Your swords, I'll go get them now—Edward's just an imbecile and you caught him off guard. Right, they're in your room."

"T-Those…yeah…" He nodded, still fearing the deathly grasp of the swordsman.

"You've had my swords this whole time and didn't even bother to tell me?" Zoro shook him like a rag doll.

"Ehhh—I'm sorry!" Edward lifted his hands above his head in defense. "You never asked and I've been studying them so…"

"You touched my katanas?" Zoro shook him again, growling.

"They're perfectly fine, t-trust me!" Zoro narrowed his eyes as if saying 'you're as good as dead if you're wrong'.

"Here," They heard Mia's footsteps coming up the stairs; in her arms she cradled the three katanas. Zoro released Edward as soon as he laid his eyes upon them; the historian didn't wait for another warning before putting a safe distance between him and the swordsman. "Take them—nothing but a burden." Mia tossed them through the air without second thought.

Zoro adroitly caught them before they could even get close to touching the ground and he slid them his waist without moment's hesitation. Now that his swords were returned to him he began to notice how much he's been longing for them. However, the HoverBoard has been distracting him these past few days that it never even crossed his mind that they were absent from his presence—Zoro cursed himself, a swordsman to not even remember his katanas.

"Happy now…" Mia crossed her arms when the apartment computer contacted her.

"Miss, there's someone at the door for you." It said, revealing a hologram screen, on it were the two, harsh looking business men from before. The physicist sighed and mentally slapped her forehead.

"Tell them that I'm coming…" She walked back over to the stairs, but turned back to the two 'idiots' before descending down them. "This is important; go wait in the closet over there until I finish with them." She pointed to the white door next to the stairs which ascended up to their third floor.

"Do we have to?" Edward whimpered like a child going to time-out. Mia's glare was all he needed and the historian was plodding over, pulling on Zoro's sleeve—though the swordsman was completely oblivious to what was going on, he was too busy inspecting his white katana for the thousandth time. The first thing that snapped his out of his trace was the sound of the closet door closing.

"Huh? Oi, where are we…" He lifted his head up and looked around. For a closet it was well spaced; the two could be standing at arm's length and still not be touching the walls. There were a few lab coats and jackets lining the sterilized, white walls.

"It's a closet."

"Why are we in a closet?" Zoro asked with a cock of his head; he finally returned Kuina's katana to its scabbard. Edward pointed towards the wall and his gaze followed. Like those interrogation rooms—the ones with the window where you can only see into it one way—this was similar. From inside of the closet the two could see the living room perfectly as if the wasn't any there, but obviously, from the outside it looked like a plain wall.

Zoro watched curiously as Mia came up the stairs followed by two, cruel looking me. He took a step towards the door—perhaps she was in need of help? But Edward stopped him and put a finger to his lips. Zoro calmed down and continued to watch with silence.

"Please," Mia said, trying with great difficulty to hold back her vexation which only increased with every passing moment the two were here.

"Thank you." One said; both their hair was a dark black and was sleeked back; weighed down heavily with gel. Wearing prim suits and holding vanilla folders they looked around the living room, eyes grazing over the closet wall, but of course they saw nothing.

"Mmmm," The other cleared his throat roughly and clapped a foot onto the ground before turning to face Mia. "Now, Miss Vegapunk,"

_Vegapunk…_ Zoro ran the name over in his head, trying to find the familiarity in it.

"I'm assuming you are aware why you are here." Thunder roared outside, adding much drama to the scene. Though Mia had to glance outside at the pouring rain, the two stood like statues.

"Yes, yes," She waved a hand through the air; wafting away unneeded chit-chat. "The blueprints, right? Though I must tell, they aren't fully complete yet."

"Please, it is on behalf of the city that you complete this project; many lives are being lost."

"By receiving your Pacifista blueprints we can minimize the deaths and injury of our law-enforcers profusely." The other added.

"I know; no need to explain." Mia waved them off again.

_Pacifista…Vegapunk…_ Zoro's thoughts continued to annoy him with their reluctance in remembering what he wanted. Then it hit him and he couldn't help but draw in a sharp intake of breath; his whole body froze up.

Edward noticed the suddenly tense air and he looked at Zoro warily. "Ummm, Zoro-kun…" He eyed up the swordsman, whose body was now shaking, from his side of the closet.

"She….Him…" were the only words Zoro could emit without screaming.

"Eh…" Edward moved away so his back was against the wall, and after a minute of just watching the swordsman seethe, he was left with no choice but to begin rapping on the wall; hopefully Mia would pick up on his signal and hurry it up.

The physicist turned her head when she heard some strange tapping sounds coming from the closet. _Those idiots…_ She thought.

"What is that?" One of the men asked, his head perking up at the noise.

"N-Nothing," Mia began to push the business men back towards the stairs. "Listen, I'll have your blueprints by the end of the week—that's four days…Today's Tuesday right?" She tried to smile politely, but obviously it didn't seem to work on those two.

"Miss Vegapunk; please; take this matter seriously."

"Of course you'll be paid handsomely for all of it,"

"But consider this service to your fellow citizen of the city; the law-enforcers who keep you safe." By now they were walking backwards down the stairs; Mia pushing them even further down until they were in the bottom level.

"I never asked anyone to protect me." She _gratefully_ opened the door for them before shoving the two out.

"Miss Vegapunk,"

"By the end of the week," And with that she slammed the door in their face and turned on her heels without even waiting to see if they truly left. Making her way up the stairs to the living room she could hear the closet door being kicked down, or was that the sound of something being cut—to be honest she wasn't sure what it something sounded like when being sliced. Though when she arrived on the second floor she came face-to-face with a raging swordsman whose teeth were gritted together, hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white around the handle of two of his katanas.

"What's your problem?" She gave him an almost disgusted look. _After those two the last thing I want to deal with is a bipolar time traveler… _

"You…Vegapunk…Mia _Vegapunk_…"

"So," She walked around him and saw that the closet door really was sliced in half, Edward still quivering inside the corner of the ambry—where it was safe.

"And the Pacifista…you're making those too?" Zoro's pungent tone made Mia turn around to face him again.

"What's up with you? Yes." She said crossing her arms. Zoro's eyes narrowed even farther and the air within the whole room by now was as tense as steel. "Listen, for your information," She snapped a finger like a sassy school girl. "If you have a problem with the name Vegapunk—" Zoro quickly cut her off.

"There was a man in my time named Vegapunk…" He hissed.

"That was my Great, Great, Great, [ect.] Grandfather; and in _your _time he was known as a hero."

"A hero was he…" Zoro growled, remembering just some of the things that Vegapunk's Pacifista had done. _Kuma he was one right… PX-1 was a Pacifista… PX-4_…. _All of those great inventions that practically killed my nakama…That sent me here… _

"Yeah, so I don't know what your problem was but Vegapunk is a proud family name; because of him he sent countless of pirates to their deaths."

"And you're _proud_ of that?" Zoro truly raised his voice for the first time.

"They were all nothing but scum!" Mia yelled back. "They plundered from the poor; picked on the weak; all of them disserved to die! My Great [ect] Grandfather helped as much as he could; exterminating their _breed_!" Oh, so now he was a breed?

Zoro opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. Instead he reached into his pocket (after putting away his swords) and took out the HoverBoard which was currently resting in its sphere form. Mia glared and Edward watched fearfully as he pushed the button on it, storming over to the windows.

The HoverBoard came to life and the swordsman jumped on it, only after kicking down one of the glass doors with his foot. As the glass shattered to the ground rain suddenly started to pour in. Zoro floated in the air for a moment before taking off in one burst of energy into the stygian clouds of the sky.

He left Mia and Edward in silence; wind and rain stormed in through the broken patio door; neither said a thing but instead listened to the thunder roar amongst the clouds. Edward swore that he saw a blue bolt of lightning—somewhere out there.

**somewhere out in the city…**

Flying wasn't an easy thing to do and the wind and rain didn't help. It didn't help that his mind and heart were aching with haphazard emotions and thoughts—memories. God, this was the worst time to start getting nostalgic. There were only a few other HoverCars out in the storm, but few enough where he could keep his distance from them and his identity hidden—though that was the least of his worries at the moment.

He sniffled; flying as fast as he could; rain that hit his face dripped completely vertical till it aviated off the other side. He whipped his eyes with the back of his hand—he didn't care if it obstructed his vision for a moment. That was probably a stupid thing to do at the time, however. Because, while he was blinded by the back of his hand another HoverCar came speeding towards him (or maybe Zoro forgot to stop at the 'Stop' sign; _damn, he always misses those things_…), beside the point the vehicle hit him head on and without warning.

Blacking out for a second, Zoro felt something hard and metal slam into his side, sending him spiraling to the ground. Then, through utter reflex, he reached out and grabbed the unbridled HoverBoard out from in front of him was a blood stained hand. Sure, his entire body and head pulsated with pain at the moment, however, he would bet a lot that crashing to the ground would hurt even more so he ignored his body's cries and continued to bring the board back under his control.

Trying to balance his self on the machine once again proved to be easier said than done. No matter what he did he couldn't seem to put his feet in the right position and his damn vision wouldn't stop spinning around in all possible directions—maybe it was the raging wind, or the fact that he was still falling which made his sight so horrible—though his suffering head made him fairly sure that a concussion was the least of his injuries.

Once he finally placed his feet in the correct area he then began to emit the much needed energy which would slow his descent. Much to his luck, by the time that he could put out any energy at all he was nothing but a mere few feet away from Area 0-0 and that outburst of energy only caused him to catapult off of the board. Zoro flew up to ten feet before coming to a skidding on the ground, face first.

Water splashed up from puddles on impact with the concrete, but he didn't really care. His HoverBoard clacked to the ground somewhere to his side, but he couldn't really hear—one with the immense ringing in his ear and two the storm all around him which was quiet overpowering when it came to sound.

Tears rolled down his already drenched face. Were tears manly? He didn't know what was what anymore. _Damn it…_ He hated emotions; always getting in the way with things. Why did he chose now to get nostalgic about the past and his absent nakama; couldn't he have chosen a drier, less stormy day to do so?

He cringed, pulling his arms towards his chest with a heaving sob. _Pathetic…This is so pathetic…_ was the only thing that came to mind at the moment. _Get up! So what if her stupid ancestors destroyed practically everything you held dear… That doesn't matter! Actually, her ancestors are geniuses and so is she… Stop contradicting yourself! Just get up! _

He gasped, but that only brought in an intake of water for his head was lying sideways in a puddle. Tilting his head up more he gasped again and coughed. Rolling onto his back, Zoro clutched his agonizing side; he could easily feel the warmth of the sticky blood under his fingers—easily feel the bent up ribcage underneath his jacket and skin. He coughed again; allowing the freezing rain to run down the sides of his face and mingle with his streaking tears. _Very pathetic…_ All he wanted to do now was fall off into a deep, deep sleep, and he would've done so if not for the voice that appeared out of nowhere.

"Hey, what's up?" It asked. Zoro opened his eyes and looked straight up. There, staring down at him was a teenager, probably no older than he was. This male had his head bent over top of Zoro's, sheltering it from the rain. Zoro blinked again, normally someone would ask if they were all right—no, don't worry about me; just lying here with a broken rib cage. You know, sleeping in the rain's always fun, no?—at least that's what he wanted to say; sarcastically, of course. "Mmmm, seems like a wipe-out, bad one at that." The guy said with a twist of a smile.

Zoro continued to stare up at him with, he could only imagine, a dumbfounded expression. He wanted to reply, but he was afraid that if he paused to speak he would lose all air and die right then and there.

"What's wrong, you can talk can't you?" The guy, despite his choice of words, didn't seem the least bit impatient at all. Finally, Zoro found his voice.

"You…You walk around in the rain often?" There was a silence before the man broke out into laughter. That wasn't _supposed_ to be funny; it was just the first thing that came to him.

"I like you; dying and still able to be funny."

"I'm not dying." Zoro said sternly.

"Of course you're not…So you can talk…" He grinned and put his hands on his hips. After another moment of silence he said, "I'm guess you're expecting me to help you."

"I don't need help."

"Of course not," He chuckled. "Give me a number; I'll call up some of ya friends." He made the shape of a phone with his fingers. _I don't have any…_ Zoro thought, _here at least_. "Just kidding; just kidding; I'll help you no problem." He moved slightly closer.

"I don't need help." He said again.

"Sure and I'm not into seeing girl's panties—you're just too funny." Even much to Zoro's reluctance, the strange teen still helped pull the swordsman to his feet. The two started to limp over to the side of the alley they were in before Zoro stopped him.

"Wait,"

"What,"

"Over there." Zoro looked over his shoulder at the HoverBoard.

"Oh, don't worry I'll get that in a sec." He said, leading Zoro towards a rotting door in the alley wall. When they reached it, he opened it was one hand and started inside. It was too dark to see anything, but it smelled of deteriorating wood, dust, and alcohol; the rain from outside sounded muffled and distant. "Here," He helped Zoro down to the ground, leaning him up against a molding wall. "Wait here," Listening keenly, Zoro heard him walk back outside into the ferocity of the storm and then return just as quickly. "I must say," He began.

"Then say it." Zoro snapped. He paused, but ignored Zoro's comment.

"I thought these HoverBoard's went out of style years ago." He handed it to Zoro in the dark.

"That's what people keep tell me." He said irritated, reaching for it and pulling it back to his lap.

"There's nothing bad about it, it's just."

"I don't feel like talking." Zoro stated coldly.

"…That's cool…" None of them spoke, only the sound of the rain, wind, and thunder kept it from complete silence. Then, without much of a warning then the sound of a match lighting, a small candle suddenly flared up before Zoro's eyes. The glow was soft and cast only a tiny circle of light. "What do you feel about listening then?" The teen asked. And without looking up at him Zoro replied.

"I don't feel much." Taking that as a plausible answer, the male, just as quickly as the wax candle lit, started up a conversation that only he took part in. Though Zoro's absence in it made no difference to him; he talked on and on as if they had known each other for years. Zoro, however, had trouble listening to every detail for his mind continued to wander; back to his crew, back to the warmth of the apartment where Mia and Edward were. Then, after that, his mind would wander back to the present where he sat, listening to a stranger jabber on about God knows what, with only a _pathetic_ candle lighting their _pathetic_ room with a _pathetic _amount of glow, meanwhile, surrounding them was a menacing blackness and Zoro felt it caressing him, easily like dictating hands molding broken down clay. 

**PLEASE REVIEW! *puppy dog eyes***


	4. Chapter 4

**the blackness that caresses the heart- part 2**

"And that's how I lost my fifth girl friend." He said musing. Zoro sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, something he's been doing a lot in the past few hours; seeing how it was the only thing to do other than listen to this guy and his rants. "Then, this one time my friend got into this fight and—"

"Listen…Kenton was it?" Zoro sighed deeply into the palm of his hand. "As _exciting_ as all this is I was just curious as to when you might be done." Kenton continued on as if he said nothing.

"Did I ever tell you that I'm related to someone famous?"

"No…can you please—"

"Yes, a pirate known as Brook."

"As interesting as—wait…what did you say?" Zoro didn't even breathe as he waited for a reply.

"Huh, what,"

"Kenton, what did you just say?"

"Brook,"

"Yes, that!" Zoro practically jumped up from his spot against the wall. Kenton jumped away from him, almost knocking the candle over with the tip of his foot. Raising his hands above his face for protection he said, "What, what…don't kill me just because of that…"

"Eh—sorry," Zoro calmed himself and sat back down, replacing his hand back onto his throbbing side.

"What's up with you; have a grudge against pirates or something?" Kenton straighten himself up and pushed his back hair out of his eyes.

"No, nothing like that…Just forget it…" He sighed. Kenton moved his gaze to the candle and watched the dwarf flame flickered whenever a breeze managed its way inside their little room. Then, without much warning, he randomly plucked the wax up from the ground and shoved it just inches in front of Zoro's face.

"Jeez, what's your problem?" Zoro recoiled from the candle; Kenton was too in shock to reply.

"Y-You're…You're him…" He mumbled with eyes as wide as baseballs. "That guy…The one who took on all of those Red Snake members…The Slasher!" He exclaimed accidently dropping the candle onto the ground where it surprisingly landed safely on its base.

"Someone's slow…"

"No…I—I just…" He bit his tongue in the middle of his sentence. "I just couldn't see you all that well in the dim light…" He finally got out.

"Mmmhmm," Zoro nodded. "Sure…" He opened his eyes and stared at Kenton intently. "I expect you know what's going to happen if you tell." The teen had a shiver go up his spine and his eyes warily glanced at Zoro's katanas which were resting against the wall.

"O-Of course; why would I tell…?" He tried to smile through his fear. "As long as you don't tell anyone I'm related to Brook; pirates aren't well liked in this city, even if they are just our ancestors."

"I won't say anything." Zoro said sternly. Then, as Kenton started to fiddle around with a stylish, metal ring on his finger, Zoro decided that it was his turn to figure out who he was really talking to. He reached down and picked up the candle, holding it in front of Kenton's face with slightly less abruptness.

Kenton blinked a few times, his eyes were a dark, navy blue resting underneath strands of thick, black hair. He had pale skin which reflected the dim light in a way where it seemed like he was glowing. Kenton's finger nails were painted black, matching much of his black attire consisting of: a slightly torn, black T; baggy, grey jeans with a loose belt around the middle; and military-like boots which were covered in a thin layer of now crusted mud.

With the back of his hand he wiped some of the strands of hair out of his face, but afterwards they just returned back to their original position over his eyes.

"Gorgeous, huh," He laughed. Zoro smirked and put the candle back down. "So, Mr. Slasher,"

"Zoro,"

"Huh,"

"My real name's Roronoa Zoro."

"Oh, okay…quiet a medieval name you got there, _Zoro_."

"You don't know the half of it." He sighed.

"Well, Zoro, were you running from the cops or something like that?"

"'Cops'?"

"_Law-enforcers_…" Kenton corrected himself with attitude.

"Oh, no; not really. You see I live with these other two people and I guess you can say we had a fight." Kenton nodded in total agreement.

"Yeah, roomies can be a pain like that."

"Well, actually, now that I look back at it I don't really see what the big deal was. It was mostly my fault and at the time I wanted to kill something but…now…"

"Is that how you killed the Red Snake members?"

"That was a _complete misunderstanding_." Zoro fixed. "But anyway…"

"Do you want to go back now?"

"What,"

"Back to your friends; now that the argument doesn't seem like a big deal I'm sure they wouldn't mind." He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I'm just not sure what I want to do really."

"Get over it; move on." He answered bluntly. "Arguments are nothing but words lashed out at one another."

"I guess…" Zoro wondered if he could even get over the fact that Mia was related to Vegapunk, the man whose creation brought him here; that she was recreating the Pacifista and—

"Oi, Zoro look." Kenton jumped up from his spot on the ground and ran over to the open door. "The rain, it's finally stopped!" Like a child waking up on Christmas morning. Zoro looked outside at the still air, but was too deep in his thoughts to get worked up over it.

Kenton leapt outside and started splashing his feet in some of the puddles. Throwing his hands into the air he said, "I love the smell of everything after it rains!"

"Mmmm," Zoro stood up with a grunt and slid his katanas back onto his hip; walking outside after taking the sphere HoverBoard out of his pocket.

"Hmm, what's that?" Kenton looked at the sphere curiously.

"My HoverBoard," Zoro said proudly; he pressed the button and showed Kenton how advanced it was, folding out into the actually shape.

"That's amazing; how'd did you get it to do that?" The teen jumped up and with overwhelming excitement.

"Uh—one of my friends made it for me." The board dropped to the ground and Zoro stepped onto it, arranging his feet correctly.

"Wait, does this mean you're leaving?" He looked almost disappointed. "You may be the Slasher but I never said I didn't enjoy talking to you; what about your wound too, can you fly with that?"

"I'll manage; besides, I never said I was leaving because of you." Zoro started to hover in place, the blue energy gently pushing him slightly higher and higher.

"A-Are you going back to your friends,"

"Depends,"

"Maybe we'll see each other again."

"Depends,"

"I'll be watching you on the news!" He exclaimed, waving goodbye.

"Yeah, see ya." Zoro turned to fly off when a thought came to him. "Wait, Kenton,"

"Huh,"

"Are; can you play like a million instruments?"

"How'd you know?" Kenton smiled with a laugh.

"Just a lucky guess," Zoro grinned to his self and took off without another word.

Kenton watched when a great burst of blue-tinted wind shot out from underneath the man's board and in less than a second sent his flying away into the brisk night of the city. He stood there, silent and still for a moment before kicking at a stone in front of his foot. _This city sure has its ways of making everyday interesting… _He thought before a swarm of footsteps came rampaging up behind him, he turned to face the other entrance to the alley and saw a group of thugs glaring at him, each with their own switchblade in hand.

"We heard you were like a cat with nine lives." One said; gruff and slurred with alcohol.

"Well, technically—"

"We wanted to see if that was true." Another laughed, holding the blade just right so the moon's light glistened off it. Kenton took a step away but showed no sign of fear.

"Pirate blood's black, isn't it?"

"Maybe you should go back to biology class and check." Kenton took another step away, yet keeping his voice calm and collected. "There're plenty of other people in this city who have pirate ancestors, many whose ancestors are from the Straw Hat crew; you don't always have to pick on me."

"Yeah, but they'd all die right away, unlike you." These were their last words before the small mob charged at him. Kenton took off into an immediate sprint down the sidewalk of the deserted Area 0-0. The men behind him screaming and cursing for him to slow down and face it like a man, but who would be stupid enough to actually listen to them.

After running for few blocks Kenton was sure that he had the upper hand when it came to speed, but those guys were persistent. _Ugh—maybe I should've made Zoro stay, just a few seconds longer…_ He moaned with exhaustion.

"Get back here you worm!"

"I-I'm friends with the Slasher now; it be best if you don't hurt me or I'll send him after you like a mad dog!" Kenton called back to them.

"Yeah right pussy; come on!" Kenton moaned some more and continued running; at least he was in shape, seeing how this happened practically every night.

**flying through the city… **

Unlike before, flying now after the storm was much more feasible and relaxing. The sky was perfectly clear and stars were shinning in an array of lights above his head; the air was brisk and that kind of acted like an ice back for his throbbing side. He didn't have to pay much attention to anything, though the occasional passing HoverCar did make his heart flutter slightly; one was bad, but getting hit twice in the same night would just be—_pathetic_. The only bad thing was that he had no freaking idea where he was. Why must this city be so confusing?

Then again, did he even want to return to their place? He still wasn't sure of that. Zoro just continued to fly around in circles, or squares, or triangles—whichever way he was going he continued to do so. Turning curves so tightly that if he wanted to he could reach out and graze a skyscraper with his fingers. He watched his reflection in the windows zoom by next to him like a whole other person. It was only when he looked at it did he remember that it was his self.

Even in the dark of midnight the city and buildings were still silver, they glistened in the moon's soft glow; always, constantly—silver. But then, soon after turning around an average sized building, Zoro came to something he has not seen before, or at least he's not seen it in the city before. He came to a dead halt, hovering just and few feet from the metal. There in front of him was a legit, melanoid building. It shouldn't have fascinated him as much as it did, but there was something about it that seemed so different from the rest of the skyscrapers.

And it wasn't just that fact that its metal and frame were made of ink colored steel; the moon still reflected off of it making it seem glossed and sleek. Zoro moved a little closer to inspect it. He reached out and placed a tentative hand on the glass, which was also tinted black. Sure, he looked normal in it, nothing wrong here. Although, when touching the glass he could tell that it was extremely cold—below freezing if he had to guess. It wouldn't be surprising if frost started to appear on his finger, but just to be safe he took it off anyway.

Still floating there, he looked down then up at the building. Okay, stretched down to Area 0-0, all normal. Windows went both ways. The building ended at the top in a point with a long antenna stretching up another ten feet. Zoro put a finger to his chin. It was all really starting to irk him. However, he had to pause in his thoughts when he saw that the antenna on the top was started to spark and glow. The sound of crackling slowly reached his ears and he floated away from the building, just enough so he could get a good look at it.

As more, what looked like blue electricity, started to collect at the apex of the building the glow intensified and Zoro had to shield his eyes with his arm if he wanted to still stare at it. But then, suddenly, a pulsating wave was shot out in all directions, bending around the black building with facility. The shockwave came at it so quickly that he had no time to react and it hit him—or went through him, actually.

As it passed through him it terminated all thoughts; he could hear nothing but a low moan; he felt as if his heart stopped and breathing was ceased. It also kept him from emitting any energy and he fell off his board. However, the HoverBoard had a safety system so it was able to float for a few more seconds before it too fell.

Holding on for dear life, Zoro tried to muster up any remained energy left and pull himself back up when a second shockwave came and smacked into him again. Grunting, he gripped the board to his chest and waited till everything died down and the pulses ceased. By now the HoverBoard was beginning to fall and he had to get on as quickly as possible.

Once he managed that he didn't care how much it was, he just let out all remained energy that was storied inside of him and bombarded away from the dark building. Making a metal note to himself, _dark skyscraper = bad_, he kept going in one direction '_away_' and never looked back.

**somewhere he wasn't sure he wanted to be… **

Okay, so they already fixed the sliding door—what does that mean? Zoro stared at the glass door he broke just a few hours before. _One Mia's robots probably repaired it_. He reached for the handle but was unsure if he wanted to enter. The living room was bright with all of the lights on, but he couldn't see anyone inside. _Should I…_ He garbed the handle with his hand but couldn't go any further. _Do I want to? _He took a deep breath and tried as hard as he could to open the door but he couldn't. "Ugh…" He stomped his feet on the patio like a child. "Why can't I make up my mind?"

**alone in edward's room…**

Alone in his room, Edward lay, sprawled out in his bed; he didn't even bother to take his lab coat off or get under the covers. His hair was a mess from the stressful day; his head thankful for the pillow it rested on. He sighed and stared up at the white ceiling with glazed eyes—exhausted yet unable to sleep.

The storm had stopped outside. He languidly turned his head to its side so he could see the time: 12:39. With another sigh he returned his gaze to the ceiling. After Zoro had left Mia immediately ran off to her room and he wasn't stupid enough to follow. So after bringing their groceries down to the kitchen he attempted to make some dinner for himself, but he couldn't eat and only sat there staring at a plate of _something_ for maybe two hours.

Edward was too worried for Zoro's safety. Mia had gone too far, but she also didn't know that Zoro was a pirate. Edward wasn't positive himself but he had his right to assume, especially after how swordsman had reacted.

_So…Here I am…_ He rolled over onto his side and just stayed there. He was about to attempt sleep once again when something began to burn—his back to be specific. It happened often whenever he'd get emotional or worried; he'd get the pungent sensation of flames being spread across his back like butter on bread.

The first thing he did was: rip off his lab coat, actually ripping it in the process, and threw it to the ground, caring less where it landed. Useless—next he took off his black T; that landed on top of the lab coat. Tears now welled at the corners of his eyes, like always. Edward then ran out of his room and into the bathroom right next door. Even with his pants still on he jumped into the shower and turned the cold all the way.

Within a moment he was lavished with the freezing water and he finally broke out into sobs. As the cool liquid washed over him, numbing the old wounds and scars on his back; the tears eventually fell, rolling down his cheeks with the water. Edward's shoulders heaved up and down with the unbearable pain—he had to lean with his head against the wall or else he would've fallen to the ground by now.

Blood from the old wounds began to seep from their place beneath the scared skin. Rolling down his well toned back the crimson moved slowly until joining the clear water down the drain. _This always happens…_ He thought between sobs. _Whenever I get scared or depressed_…_The memories from back then just come flooding back—the pain from that time_… His breathing started to slow and he was soon rid of enough pain where he could open his eyes. _Always…When will I be rid of this past_…? He brushed a quivering hand over the scars on his back. _I guess…Never…_

Edward was now sitting, waiting for relatively most of the pain to fade. _At least the blood's stopped. _He lifted his head out from his curled in legs and reached for 'Cold' knob when he swore he heard a door opening upstairs. He froze and tried to listen over the sound of the running water. _The wind? _He turned the water off and used the wall to push his self up without taking his eyes off of the ceiling; ears as keen as could be. _Zoro…Maybe…Okay, that's probably pushing it. _He stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel hanging on one of the hooks. He started dabbing his hair and torso with it, quietly; however, he was still listening upstairs.

Walking out of the bathroom his completely soaked pants left a trail of water behind him as he once again entered his bedroom. Forgetting about the noise he had heard upstairs he swiftly changed pants and underwear and collapsed onto the bed—literally falling asleep in less than ten seconds. Too bad for whoever was looking for him upstairs.

**alone in mia's room…**

Rigorously stacking the rest of the blueprints into one pile Mia abruptly pushed away from her orderly desk. With one last glance at the finished Pacifista blueprints she turned and stared pacing around her room; hands behind her back.

After her argument with Zoro she stormed right up here and stared furiously finishing up the designs and finished in what could be record timing. So she had one less thing to worry about, but then there was still the bigger issue of Zoro to worry about.

Mia stopped and stared at the floor. She never wanted him to leave; it was his fault anyway. If that idiot kept his mouth shut and didn't lash out at her—_but now it doesn't matter he's probably caught by law-enforcers by now, or got into an accident or something_…

She started to fiddle with her fingers nervously. She never wanted him to get hurt either—_what's so wrong with being related to Vegapunk anyway. He was a genius in Zoro's time unless Zoro was a pirate then he'd hate the man and the odds of Zoro being a pirate were…_ The physicist did the calculations in her head and ended up slapping herself for her stupidity. _No one he got so upset at what I said._ __

"_They plundered from the poor; picked on the weak; all of them disserved to die! My Great [ect] Grandfather helped as much as he could; exterminating their breed!"_

"For a genius in physics I'm retarded when it comes to social skills." She mumbled; her feet grew heavy with guilt. But then, she heard something downstairs. Mia's heart skipped a beat and she jumped a little. _Burglar? No, that's just stupid. It-It was probably just the wind. _Her mind began to race not matter what she told herself. Then she heard some more sounds and couldn't help but move closer to her door. _Z-Zoro, is that even possible? _

She waited, with her hand hovering over the doorknob until all of the scurrying downstairs halted. Taking a deep breath she opened the door and ran for the stairs. Making sure to be absolutely silent when going down them she reached the living room and found herself staring wide-eyed at the couch.

"M-Making us worry for nothing; that idiot; I'll be sure to kill him when the time's right." Her eyebrows twitched in annoyance. Clenching her fists she took a deep breath and exhaled. _Apologize first_. Quietly, she walked up to the couch and looked over the back of it down at the swordsman who was sprawled out with his head nestled in the crock of his arm.

Glancing, then ignoring the blood on his shirt Mia said, "Um—listen Zoro," He moaned something. "I just…I had no idea that you were actually a pirate and…well…I don't normally do this but I just want to say," She looked at him, but he was silent. "I just want to say that I sorry." She finally blurted. He made no response and Mia's face grew insanely red. "Eh—" She cleared her throat. _H-How made is he?_ She eyed him up nervously. _Can't he just say something already? What's with the silent treatment?_ "Zoro…" She tapped and pulled on his shoulder, forcing his head to roll her way—only to reveal his sleeping, snoring face.

Mia started flailing and screaming in anger. "A-ARE YOU SERIOUS," Zoro jerked away.

"Huh,"

"YOU WERE ASLEEP THIS WHOLE TIME…WHILE _I _WAS APOLOGIZING!" She motioned to herself dramatically.

"What's up," Zoro rubbed scratched the back of his head and yawned. Mia seethed and hissed through clenched teeth.

"YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT! WHEN A _LADY_ SUCH AS _MYSELF _TAKES HER TIME TO APOLOGIZE TO A BLOCKHEAD LIKE YOU, DON'T GO AND FALL ASLEEP ON THEM!"

"Hey, Mia," Zoro gave her a small wave but cringed when she lashed out again.

"AGH—IDIOT; IMBOCILE; MUSCLE-HEAD FREAK; DUNDERHEAD!" She turned and stomped back towards the stairs.

"Okay, goodnight Mia." Zoro gave her another wave, completely oblivious to her obvious anger. (Partly because he was waken up from sleep and was still slightly delusional).

"Welcome back…" She grumbled before running up the stairs. Zoro watched her until she was gone and then plopped back down onto the couch. Snuggling his face back into his arm he immediately fell back asleep and reentered his dream.

He was on a rock-like platform in the middle of ocean; there was a storm raging over head and waves constantly snapped at his ankles like ravenous dogs. He had his swords out and was having a friendly spare with Brook; next to them was Kenton or ten Kenton's to be specific; all playing a different instrument—like background music for a battle scene. Whenever he and Brook clashed there was a flash of lightning and thunder; within the thunder he could hear a familiar voice screaming words such as: 'idiot', 'dunderhead', blockhead', imbecile' and so on.

'Shut up you Ero-cook',' Zoro would yell.

'It's not me, Marimo." Sanji would scream back from the clouds. Zoro glared up at him until Brook would bring him back to the present of his dream. And basically it went on like that until a soft voice woke him.

"Zoro-kun," It said. Zoro groaned and waved away the pest. "…Zoro-kun," He could feel someone shaking his shoulder. "I won't stop till you wake up."

"What do you want…" He murmured, squinting one eye open. Zoro saw an Edward smiling down at him; the historian bending over, hands on his knees.

"It's good to see you again." Edward said.

"Yeah, you too;" Zoro spoke into the air of the couch. "Now goodnight," He rolled as an attempt to get away from the annoyance.

"But Zoro-kun, it's already 10:00 in the morning; can't you see the sunlight?"

"Blind…" He groaned hopping it would make him go away.

"Just leave him be." Mia scowled from the opposite side of the room.

"Nice to see you too, _sunshine_," Zoro growled back; he pulled his legs up to his chest so he was in a feudal position.

"_What did you just say_?" Mia snapped her finger in the air like a spoiled teen.

"Mmmm," Zoro dug his face deeper in the back of the couch. "Go away!" He whined in a high pitched voice, "Zoro tired."

"Listen, he's just mocking us!" Mia rushed over to the two men, lifting her clipboard threateningly over her head.

"Please, Mia-chan, just ignore him." Edward acted like a shield for the unaware swordsman, jumping in between the two. Mia snarled and pushed him aside with brute force.

"Mia-chan," Edward pleaded, but it was too late and Mia had already smacked Zoro in the head with the clipboard.

"Ow, what the hell was that for?" Zoro sat up and glared at her, rubbing the back of his head profusely.

"Guess you—look what you did to my couch!" She jutted a finger at the blood stains on the white couch which came from Zoro's ribcage.

"Oh; _sorry_ for being hurt," Zoro sneered. "I guess I forgot to stop bleeding in the middle of the night." He put his hands up for protection sarcastically.

"Yes; how _dare_ you bleed." Mia narrowed her eyes until they became nothing but slits; Zoro did the same.

"Hey, guys, I got an idea," Edward spoke up fearfully from his spot on the ground. Both turned and glared at him.

"What?" They snapped in unison.

"H-How about," He clapped his hands together for enthusiasm. "We go…and have breakfast." He jumped. "Yay, how does that sound?" The tow glanced at each other and nodded. "So, let's go and—" They smacked Edward in the back of the head, sending him spiraling to the ground.

"Eh—glad you guys could agree on something…" He mumbled before passing out into the black of unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

**knowledge is only useful to those who know its limits- part 1**

After another crack of Mia's wooden whip, Zoro yanked his hand away and rubbed it profusely as it throbbed in stinging pain. This made no sense to the swordsman, but then again everything that this girl did was crazy. Pacing back and forth like a military general, she ruthlessly glared at him with menacing eyes; tapping the whip into the palm of her hand continuously.

Zoro moaned and leaned back into his chair; pouting with arms crossed. Since nine this morning, Mia's been schooling him like a child. He didn't even know what it was about. Okay, well he had a few ideas. Ever since he mentioned the black skyscraper to them [Mia and Edward] a few days ago she's been freaking out and making sure he knew apparently everything there was to know about it. When it was open; what kind of people worked there and so on.

Then she kept blabbering on about some kind of company—he was pretty sure it was called the _NULT_ Company or something—but none of this was necessary. He was still stuck in the future separated from his nakama; he was still a wanted criminal, but then again he felt badass telling his self that so that one wasn't so bad; however, despite the time he's been here Mia still hasn't told him her request that he must fulfill before she builds the time machine.

_Why not say it now…_ He zoned out, the physicist's voice becoming nothing but squeaky sounds. _The quicker she tells me the quicker I get it done and the quicker I can go home…_

"Now remember all of this stuff, Zoro. Because it's all related to my terms that must be completed before I make the time machine." Zoro jumped.

"Eh—what'd you say… all of that was related?" He spazed a little and fell out of his chair.

"Ugh…You weren't paying attention were you…" She moaned.

"If I was paying attention then why did you keep slapping me all those times?" He peeked over the edge of the table like a mischievous kid.

"I hit you because you were getting the questions wrong."

"I would figure that me getting the questions wrong is an _obvious_ that I wasn't paying attention." His eyebrows went up. There was a silence before she said, "Just forget I said anything."

"Wait, but I need to know what you just taught me—I wasn't paying attention!" He exclaimed worryingly.

"Don't forget _that_ _stuff_!"

"Can't forget what you never learned." He cooed nonchalantly.

"Rrrr; shut it!" She swung at him but missed drastically. He simply danced out of the way with his arms behind his back; he spun and grinned slyly.

"I want to go for a ride."

"No; you're not going anywhere!" She swung again, but he spun away again.

"Where's Edward?"

"Out shopping wh—Argh!" She charged him like a bull while he laughed and ran out of the room. "Don't go out there you idiot; cops are everywhere looking for you; besides you need to stay here and learn!" She chased after him down the stairs.

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to be learning…And I'm bored so I'm gonna go out for a while and you can teach me more when I get back."

"You're so annoying!" She was now yelling at him on the patio as he hovered just out of reach.

"I'll bring Edward back—something productive, right?" With a final grin, Zoro took off leaving Mia peevishly standing alone, small remains of his blue energy slowly dispersing through the air around her. She watched him as he turned a corner at dangerous speeds before stomping back inside.

**out in the city… **

The day was extremely sunny and quite blinding when you accounted for the amount of light reflecting off of the mirror-like windows. However, being up so high in the city, the wind was icy and brisk, enough to cause goose bumps. And like always or at least so it seemed recently, Zoro has had the profound ability to attract a small swarm of law-enforcers in less than just a few minutes of flying around aimlessly.

However, it was just like a game of tag to the pirate; who could slip away from the law-enforcers with ease. Due to the size of his HoverBoard compared to the cop cars [which were much like motorcycles, simply flying through the air with their whining, blinking sirens on the front], going through alleys was nothing, and seeing how the swordsman followed absolutely _none_ of the traffic laws—again, it was nothing but tag to him.

Picking up speed even in the slightest and Zoro was already out of their reach. He laughed heartedly as the whining of sirens slowly muffled away into the distance. He flew into an open, courtyard like area and came face-to-face with it again; the black tower standing ever so innocently in the basking glow of the sun. Trying to ignore its strange, tugging call it had on him, Zoro flew around it; inches away from its surface. But then, out of the corner of his eyes he saw something that required stopping.

Yanking the front of his board up, Zoro came to a grinding halt; he was forced to balance himself with outstretched arms or risk falling off backwards. Once regaining footage he warily looked at the black windows, though all he saw was the reflection of him, dumfounded and staring back.

_Of course,_ he thought. _Anything like that would've been impossible…_ Shaking his said somewhat somberly he quickly flew away from the ominous tower and back into the bustling of the city. _Seeing Luffy in the reflection…of course that's impossible… _

**back in the time of the great pirate age…**

"Luffy," Nami called out to the captain who was too entranced to hear. She sighed in defeat once again. Sure, it was nice to see everyone again, wonderful really; ever since they all got separated she's been worrying none stop and then one day Kuma came to her explaining what had happened; 'all a misunderstanding', he had said; 'never meant for it to happen'. Of course she was skeptical at first, terrified of the warlord, but the thought of seeing her nakama again was too tempting, and soon after teleporting away from Weather Island with Bartholomew she found herself in a strange, dark, dusty room—surrounded by all of her nakama—except one of course.

Later, after reuniting with everyone and hugging excessively an old man waddled himself in. He was short with penetrating eyes and introduced himself as Dr. Vegapunk; Kuma's creator. [Kuma stood by silently while the Doctor talked].

_He told us how sorry he was for allowing this to happen._ Nami pondered over his words. _Told us why Zoro wasn't here and that he was actually in the future, but perfectly fine. Some of the idiots in our crew sighed with relief of course, but how can he _really_ know if Zoro's okay? And now that the warlord and Vegapunk left it's just us in this dingy little room that smells of thousand year old mold and is littered with papers. _

_Despite his act of brining us back together, I'm pretty sure none of us trust him 100%; he did separate everyone in the first place. _Nami sighed deeply into the palm of her hand.

"What's wrong, Nami-swan?" Sanji asked gently, sitting down next to the orange-haired navigator.

"Nothing, Sanji-kun…It's just that all of this is kind of random if you think about it…I don't really know…" The cook put a caring hand on her shoulder.

"I get what you mean, but truthfully I'm also just happy that were all back together in one piece…excluding Zoro but that muscle-head can take care of himself just fine." Nami nodded in agreement.

"What has Luffy been looking at this whole time?" She motioned to where their mighty captain was staring at this portal like machine [which was raised on a platform with stairs leading up to it].

"I don't know…Oi, Luffy," Sanji hollered over to him but they received no response; Luffy only mumbled, "that's impossible…" under his breath.

"Hmm, what's impossible Luffy?" Usopp asked while he fiddled with some kind of machine, not even bothering to look up. Luffy stumbled away from the portal machine and mumbled again, "I-I just saw Zoro in that thing….but that's impossible…"

**back in the future… **__

Pushing the possibility of seeing Luffy in the reflection out of his mind, Zoro continued on his cruise around the city. Though, he did try to remember some of things Mia talked about concerning the black building, seeing how he just saw it—but pathetically, he couldn't recall anything except that it was located in the heart of the city. He sighed, she'll be mad at him when he returns. Pushing these thoughts out as well, he tried to continue on with a clear, peaceful mind but as he moved closer to Area 0-0 he picked up some voice that sounded extremely familiar and curiosity stopped him.

Silently, he move closer to the ground and eventually hopped off, carrying the board underneath his right arm. Zoro listened some more to the voices inside—some being familiar and it wasn't until he heard the booming scream that he got any ideas of who it really was.

"Come on; are you serious I so jumped over him—this game just sucks!" It was Kenton, obviously angry about something.

"Well I didn't buy it for you so pack it up already." Edward said hastily.

"Huh, going already?"

"Yeah, so hurry up." Zoro took a few steps closer to the door, on it was a small green sign but it was so old and deteriorated the words were illegible. _Never would've guessed that Kenton and he were acquaintances…_

"Kenton a-are you really f-friends with that Slasher guy," A nervous man inside asked.

"Yeah, we're pretty tight." Kenton replied cheerfully.

"Wow, are you really friends with someone like that?" A young, childishly voice exclaimed.

"D-Don't get excited…t-that man's supposedly a monster!" The nervous one snapped.

Outside, Zoro couldn't help but chuckle to himself, man_—those two sound like an idiotic pair I know all too well. _

"He's not bad at all; especially after I told him about my heritage. Once he heard about Brook, it was him who was worshipping me. It took me all night to explain that I would never harm him. He was shaking in fear even after that." Kenton said boisterously.

_Like hell that happened…_ Zoro seethed through gritted teeth. _He's starting to sound a little more like Usopp's descendent than Brook's here…_ It took all willpower of Zoro not to break down the door with his clenched fists.

"And you should've seen these little toothpicks he had for swords—I was surprised he could even give anyone a paper cut, let alone kill them." Kenton shrugged.

"Oi, don't go insulting my katanas now—you hear me Kenton!" Zoro moved over to the rectangular, store-like window that was next to the door. He flailed his arms violently and screamed at the top of his lungs. Looking through the window he could only see the silhouette of five people staring back at him, though the grim on it restricted him from seeing any details about them, except for the fact that one was extremely short or just a child.

"Z-Zoro, w-what a-are you doing here," Kenton fell off his chair and slowly backed away in fear.

"Oh, I see you're scared now; well how about I come in there and show you what these toothpicks can do. They don't call me the Slasher for nothing you know."

"Actually, I recall you mentioning that it was all a misunderstanding." Kenton regained some of his composure.

"Sure _they_ jumped _me_, but I still killed all they're sorry asses!" Zoro pounded against the glass.

"Eh—I'll be seeing you guys later." Edward quickly grabbed all of his bags and ran outside. Through the window everyone else could see the historian grabbing and pulling Zoro away from the small shop as he continued to attack the air.

"Mmmm, I didn't know that Edward and the Slasher knew one another…" The female in the room placed a finger on her chin to ponder.

"What are you doing; let me kill the twerp!" Zoro tried to pull himself away from Edward who did well in keeping the swordsman steady.

"Please, just try and ignore him," While easing the swordsman, Edward was also wiggling the HoverBoard from under his arm; once he did free it Zoro spun around to face him.

"What the hell are you doing; and why do you hang out here?"

"I don't _hang out here_…" Edward mocked with a whiny voice, throwing the board onto the ground.

"Hey, don't break it!" Zoro stepped on top of the machine and Edward jumped on behind him before he could even argue back.

"Fly." He ordered bluntly, grabbing onto Zoro's shoulders.

"Tch," Zoro took off roughly with a quick burst of energy. Once they were a well ways into the upper part of the city Zoro asked, "So, if you don't _hang out there_ then what were you doing; and with that Kenton…" He growled at the thought of the teen.

"I went out shopping this morning and my doctor's also there so I decided to pick of some pills."

"What for,"

"Just having some back pains lately, that's all."

"Mmmm, I see." The rest of the flight was silent that is until Edward had to start correcting him about what way they were flying, and the historian insisted that they followed traffic rules while he's flying; 'less likely I'll die then' he says. So now Zoro was forced to actually wait at the red lights; actually forced to fly with the rest of the citizens in their HoverCars. So now Zoro was forced to stare at the obnoxious red light in front of him while thousands of cars beeped and people cursed around him.

"You sure, because I could just go over everyone…_right_ now…" He clenched his fists in vexation.

"No, sorry, but I'm not in a dying mood today; so-so just wait for the light to change." Edward told him. Zoro grumbled and only looked when he saw the light change. However, before he could start flying some stranger put down his window and said to him "hey, aren't you the Slasher…" Edward immediately dug his face into the back of Zoro's white jacket.

"Uh…" With a cock of his head Zoro stared at the man dumbfounded. _What am I supposed to say?_ "No…" He tried.

"O-Of course ya're!" He hollered with wide eyes. "Law-enforcers…Law-enforcers…" He began fumbling around for his cell ignoring the irritated honks of the people held up behind him. "Ah-ha!" He exclaimed whipping his phone out, but before he could even dial something law-enforcers were already swarming around the corners of the buildings, honing in on Zoro and Edward.

"O-Okay, _now_ you can fly above everyone…" Edward stuttered fearfully, but he didn't need to tell Zoro that, the swordsman was already about to leave before he even got to breath to speak. He casually floated up above the surrounding cars and turned around. "Go; go!" Edward screamed, clinging to Zoro's back fearfully; his hands clenched around the pirate's white jacket. Then, with an omniscient grin, the two took off just barely grazing over the tops of HoverCars. Law-enforcers whined behind them and the lights from their sirens [red and blue] spun around the blub on front and reflected off the tight walls of the bordering skyscrapers.

"Z-Zoro!" Edward looked over his shoulder and thought that if he reached his hand out behind them he could touch the front of the law-enforcer's HoverCars—that's how quickly they were catching up on them. "Zoro!" He screamed again, but the swordsman was as nonchalant as ever.

"Hold on," Zoro said through the whipping wind; Edward did just that. Zoro then moved closer to the right side of one of the buildings where, at the corner, there was a stop sign sticking out horizontally. He reached up and grabbed hold of the sign's metal pool and in one deft motion, using his momentum, was lifted up and around the sign [making the shape of the circle and once he and Edward reached the top of the sign, all of the cop cars had measly passed underneath them]. Quickly finishing the small circle around the guidepost he was once again under it and the law-enforcers desperately tried to stop and turn around but their speeds were too great and only slid into one another.

"Hmph," Zoro chuckled to himself before taking off to the right—away from the law-enforcers. All eyes in the city suddenly seemed to be locked onto the two of them. The road they flew through seemed to be slowly closing in on them; the buildings bending over them like arches. Everything went by in quick blurs, their speed was impeccably fast and tears streamed off of Edward's face in horizontal lines.

People watched in awe as he swerved through the stagnant flow of traffic; meandered dangerously around corners and turns. Some people even cheered the law-enforcers on. Passing by—it was nothing but a quick glimpse but Zoro could see a teenage girl video tapping him with some kind of hand-held device. But after a second she became nothing but background to him and he was forced to make another turn or sly trick to avoid the law-enforcers—who were quickly catching up.

"They seem much more determined than last time…" He mumbled under his breath.

After nearly dodging a head-on collision with an on-coming HoverCar Zoro looked over his shoulder and saw nearly twenty law-enforcers gaining ground quicker than he could create it. Gasping, [for this much flying drained much of his energy] Zoro only looked forward when Edward nervously tugged at his sleeves.

"Watch out!" The historian yelled, pointing ahead. Zoro followed his finger only to come face-to-face with a thick, steel bridge connecting two separate buildings. Halting all flow of energy [due to pure reflex], Zoro and Edward dropped to the ground like deadweights in water. "Zoro!" Edward exclaimed, snapping him back to his thoughts.

With a grunt, Zoro tried to muster up another burst of energy, but they were already too close to the ground and when he did manage to create a wave of energy they ended up bouncing and spinning out of control like someone skipping rocks. Without thinking, the swordsman had taken Edward into his arms and wrapped himself around the smaller man as much as he could; shielding him from any blows or debris that came their way due to the fall. After skidding for some fifty feet both could feel themselves jerk as they crashed into and through a thick wall; glass shattered and more skidding came after the rugged impact.

"Ugh…Z-Zoro…" Edward opened his eyes once all was silent and still. "…Zoro…" He blinked some more but could see nothing but black. At first fear inundated him, for the thought of blindness was just—he lifted his hand in front of his face and saw the very dim, oblique outline of it. With a sigh of relief he went back to the issue of finding Zoro.

Edward attempted to pick himself up but only succeeded in lifting his torso halfway up for something heavy weighed down upon him. "Eh—" He tried to move it but froze when he felt the warmth of skin beneath his touch. _Zoro? _He squirmed so more and strained to look over his shoulder. Jumping, he accidently knocked the unconscious Zoro with the back of his hand. "Z-Zoro…" Recovering from the shock he picked Zoro's arm up off of him and moved so he was sitting up cross-legged.

The swordsman didn't look to hurt, just—unconscious. Edward reached out and tried to feel a pulse but his hands were still quivering so much that he found it impossible. Seeing his slow breathing he was assured that Zoro was alive and he mumbled, "I'll give him a sec." Edward stood up and stretched his extremely sore joints. There was a sudden rush of blood to his legs that made them tingle and pulsate strangely, he even felt a little lightheaded. Calmly reached out for a wall to steady his self and his hand came in touch with something icy and stiff. "…Must've some kind of steel wall…" He looked around but his eyes still haven't adjusted to the darkness. "A basement maybe…No, we can't be underground; we only crashed into something when running from the cops—maybe they caught us and were in jail?" He gasped, stumbling away from the wall. "Wait, that's a stupid thought…" Continued to plod backwards his mind began to ponder again. "I wonder how long we've been out—eh?" Suddenly tripping over Zoro he landed flat on his butt, arms coming out just in time to catch him.

"Jeez, watch where he step Michael…" He could hear Zoro grumble. Kicking the pirate lightly in the ribs he sighed, "It's Edward, please try and get it right…It's just starting to get annoying now."

"It's not my fault your name's so weird…" Zoro sat up and stared blankly at the darkness in front of him.

"'Weird', I beg to differ but I believe _your_ name is the abnormal one here!"

"Where are we?" Quickly changing the subject Zoro looked at the historian through the corners of his eyes.

"Uh—well," Edward's shoulder slumped as he lost all energy to argue. "I'm not too sure."

"And you haven't tried to look around."

"In case you haven't noticed but its pitch black!" Edward hollered in frustration. Zoro, ignoring his vexation, stood up and brushed some of the debris off of his pants.

"You sure you're okay to stand." Edward shot right up after him with extended arms, to balance the swordsman just in case he needed it. Zoro sent him a quick glance.

"I'm fine."

"You _were_ unconscious."

"I was sleeping…It's very tiring to fly your fat ass around all day."

"Hey, you're the one with five tons of weight on him, muscle-head!" Zoro acted like he didn't say a thing.

"So, where do you think we are?" He asked this while bending down and sliding the sphere form of the HoverBoard into his pocket.

"I'm not too sure; seeing the lack of light maybe in a basement of some sort but I don't remember falling below ground."

"What do you remember?"

"We were running away from the law-enforcers and we crashed."

"That's about it." Zoro agreed with his hands on his hips. "Do you have a light on you?"

"Oh—wait?" Edward gasped and hastily yanked something out of his lab coat pocket.

"Hmm, what's that?" Zoro cocked his head to one side and stared at the strange machine in Edward's hand. Pushing a small button on the small, practically paper-thin rectangle a bright light suddenly illuminated off of the screen. Blinding the two for a second, when they eventually returned their eyes to the screen they saw a list of names and numbers.

"What is it?" Zoro asked again, leaning in a little more.

"It's kind of like a phone I guess."

"Phone?"

"Something you can call someone else with." Edward replied without taking his eyes off of the screen; he scrolls down the list until he came to Mia's name.

"Oh, like a Den-Den Mushi." Zoro said.

"Yeah, that's what they were called back in your time right?"

"Sure, but this is definitely not a snail." Suddenly Mia's face appeared on the screen as she scowled at them.

"Where the hell are you two?" She asked through seething teeth.

"Well we don't know…" Edward answered nervously. Mia narrowed her eyes maliciously.

"Well, according to my locater it says you two are in the basement of the NULT Company's tower."

"A-Are you serious—the NULT?"

"Yeah what the hell happened to bring you _there_!" She spat.

"Well…."

"We were running away from the cops," Zoro answered. "And what exactly is the NULT Company?"

"You're the biggest idiot I've ever meet….even more than that loser standing next to you…the _NULT_ _Company_ was basically everything I was teaching you this morning."

"Oh, uh—yeah I just wanted to make sure…"

"You're clueless aren't you?" Edward whispered and Zoro nodded humbly.

"You two are just lucky that it's night time," Mia said with a shake of her head.

_I-I didn't think we were out for that long…. _Edward thought it shock. "everyone working in that building as already gone home so you two are free to snoop around."

"Shouldn't we focus on getting out and not fulfilling you needs?" Edward asked.

"Can't you do both at the same time?" She snapped. Then, taking a deep breath she started to explain. "You two, seeing how you're a floor underground you'll need to go up to ground level before you look for the blueprints." She said.

"Blueprints…What's in here that we need to fulfill; if I do this will you make my time machine?" Zoro jumped in front of Edward's face and shook the screen as if they were Mia's shoulders.

"Calm down you idiot and stay quiet the security system is still on." Mia growled. "Have Edward explain everything to you latter." The historian finally retrieved his piece of tech back from the swordsman. "Edward, the blueprints should be somewhere on the fifth floor; you're lucky cause there're thirty floors in total so you don't have to travel far…this time at least. Now, I want you to shut your connector off, security might be able to detect you if it's on for too long."

"O-Okay…"

"Only call back if you need me." And with that Mia shut her end off—Edward did the same. This time he set the machine onto something that might've been called 'flashlight mode' for it emitted only a bright ray of white light, which he shone in front of them and he used it to scan the room. He moved it up to the ceiling where the two saw a gapping whole in the foundation where they must've fallen through to the basement. Although, despite being in the basement they were still in a hallway; a steel hallway where the air felt frozen and your footsteps would echo drastically.

"Most hallways in the building are like this." Edward commented, staring up at the hole in the ceiling.

"Where exactly is the NULT Company tower?" Zoro asked.

"This is the black skyscraper you described before." Edward said with little emotion. Zoro tried to suppress his thoughts and feelings—though he wasn't too sure what he was feeling to be exact. "Let's try and find a staircase up." Edward started walking away when Zoro laughed and stopped him.

"Seriously, you're just going to ignore that hole right above us to the next floor?"

"There's no way I can get up there!"

"Ugh…" Zoro slumps his shoulders and sighed as he, in one swift motion, scooped Edward up like a bride and held him in his arms.

"What do you think you're doing?" Edward demanded with blushing cheeks.

"Going up." He moaned bluntly jumping up through the hole with great ease. Then, landing on the first floor he finally let Edward down; scrambling away Edward regaining his thoughts.

"Okay….now we have to find a stairway to the _second_ floor." He looked around but everything was just as dark as the basement; obviously there were no windows nearby, but they did see some cubicles with personal computers.

"Again with the stairs…" Zoro groaned and pulled out a sword. "Listen, I'll just cut up our own little passage to the fifth floor."

"A-Are you insane?" Edward flailed.

"Mia said so herself that no one was here so what does it matter?" He shrugged, holding the sword over his head. Edward charged him and tried to pull the sword back down but Zoro easily refused. Holding the angry historian back by the face Zoro nonchalantly said, "Don't worry about it." And with that a blue veil of energy surrounded itself around the blade of the katana. "I'll make it quick and silent so—" He was cut off when some shot off the walls and knocked the blade out of his hands.

"What the hell?" He gasped, staggering back. Edward immediately dropped to the ground and covered his head; the light from his connector radiated everywhere. Zoro grunted under his breath and looked for his attacker, and then he spotted something scurrying towards him. Only when it moved into the light did he see what it was—or what it resembled at least—to the swordsman it look like a robotic spider. It had the long yet scrunched in legs, their tips sharp enough to stab something if it wanted to. There was a small, crimson eye that glowed on the front of its beady head and overall it was probably something around the size of a toy ball.

However, its speed was of something much greater. Within a second it moved in the light and out of it once again. Zoro tensed up as he picked up his katana, holding it at arm's length. Moving closer to the light and Edward he asked, "Did you see that?"

"Yeah, I think it's the security system…We better go before more come." Edward said nervously, getting up and putting his back to the swordsman's.

"But I didn't do anything; why'd it come now?"

"I don't know but—" Edward shrieked when he saw the spider long for him. Ducking just in the spider went over his head and into Zoro's ranges of attacked and in one fluent motion of blade and fluorescent energy it was nothing but a heap of steel rubble.

"They're nothing." Zoro boasted, watching his blue energy slowly fade away into the air.

"Y-Yeah, _alone_…" Edward pointed over to where a swarm of them were coming; there were so many of the robot-spiders that some had to crawl on the walls and ceilings.

"What the hell?" Zoro had just put his sword away only to take out two this time.

"It must be your energy that makes it this easy to find us." Edward said backing away.

"Well then," The pirate grinned and pulls out his HoverBoard, jumping on it when it changed form. "Seeing how I'm the issue it should be easy to fix." He did a few circles around Edward before flying away, drawing the spiders after him.

"Zoro! What do you think you're doing!" He screamed.

"Saving your sorry ass—while I distract them you get the stupid blueprints or whatever the hell Mia wants and I'll meet you on the fifth floor in a bit."

"But Zoro!"

"Don't worry I'll be fine…" His voice started to fade off after that. Edward whimpered and huddled with the glow of his connector.

"But it's not _you_ that I'm worried about…"


End file.
